New Blood
by judodave
Summary: The Las Vegas Crime Lab gets two new additions to the night shift, and on a busy night they can use all the help they can get, can the new CSIS help their colleagues crack the cases? COMPLETE!
1. Introductions

It was business as usual for the Las Vegas Crime Lab, the night shift had just started and the Night shift CSI staff where beginning to fill in, so far only Gil Grissom, a man in his early fifties with short grey hair and a matching beard and the coroners had arrived for work but he knew that the other staff members would show up soon.

And of course, the two new arrivals would be here soon enough.

Two new CSIS would be joining the team that night, one male and one female, they were young and inexperienced but had shown great promise during their training.

_Of course, we'll have to see how they perform in the field._ Gil thought as he looked over the cases, one was an apparent suicide of a young woman in Henderson, the other was a rather grizzly murder at the Tangiers hotel and the third was a hit and run.

As he decided who to assign the cases to there was a knock at the door, Gil looked up seeing the chief Coroner, Dr. Albert "Al" Robbins, a balding man in his sixties with grey hair and a beard standing at the door clenching his cane in one hand and holding the door with the other.

"Sorry for the interruption Gil, but this young man got lost on the way to your office." Al explained as the man he mentioned stepped in, the noticeably embarrassed man was in is early 20s with long light brown hair tied into a ponytail and blue eyes, he was tall and pretty well built, he sat down in front of the desk as he thanked Al for the help.

"Evan Mitchell is presume?" Gil asked though he already knew the answer.

"That's me, sir." Evan answered shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

"Call me Gil; we are going to be friends after all." Gil reassured the young man and he seemed to relax a bit. "Did you see a young woman on your way in?" Gil asked and Evan shook his head.

"Aside from Al the only other person I've seen since I got here is the receptionist." Evan answered and Gil nodded.

"You showed some exceptional skills for someone who hasn't worked in the field before." Gil said showing him the file on him. "But do you think you're ready for the field?"

"Not to sure to be perfectly honest but we'll have to wait and see." Before Grissom could continue there was another knock at the door, it was Al again this time accompanied by a young woman.

"Gil, as you have probably guessed by now this young lady got lost on the way to your lab and, like Evan; she ended up in the morgue by accident." Al explained as the young woman stepped forward, she was petite with long, dark brown hair and green eyes.

"Thanks Al, don't worry, these two are the only newcomers tonight." Al nodded and held the door open for the young woman and she entered, she sat down next to Evan and Gil smiled.

"Sophie Danielson, correct?" Gil asked and she nodded, before he could continue the sound of the rest of the night shift CSIS approaching filled the area.

"Well, guess it's time you two met your co-workers." Gil said, the two rookies stood up unsure what to expect, the CSIS entered the office surprised to see the unfamiliar faces.

"Everyone, I'd like you to meet Sophie Danielson and Evan Mitchell, they are joining the staff as of tonight." Gil said motioning to the rookies as he mentioned their names, they said nothing and Gil continued. "Now onto business, Nick, Warrick, you are on a suicide in Henderson, Evan will accompany you on the case." The two CSIS approached the young man and took there assignment, "Catherine, your with Sophie, murder at the Tangiers, all I can say is be ready for a bloody crime scene." Gil said handing the assignment to Sophie. The four CSIS left the room just in time to here Greg get the hit and run case.

"So you're new here, huh?" Nick asked Evan as they walked down the hallway.

"Yeah, I got similar job offers from the crime labs in Miami and New York but I chose this one because it's closer to home." Evan said scratching the back of his neck nervously.

"You nervous kid?" Warrick, the only African American on the team and the only one sporting an afro for that matter, asked him.

"Let's see, it's my first day on the job, I somehow ended up in the morgue whilst looking for Grissom's office and I got a suicide case for my first case, I don't see why I'd be nervous." Evan said jokingly getting a laugh out of the more experienced CSIS.

"Happens to everyone man, don't worry about it." Nick assured him as they hopped in the car. "Just so you know, you're shadowing us on the case, meaning that you can't collect evidence but it'll be a good learning experience for you." Nick added as they entered the car, Warrick hopped in the driver's seat and Nick got in alongside him, the drive to the crime was uneventful, well apart from Evan getting a call from his girlfriend as they neared Henderson but that was just a quick check up.

Soon they arrived at the apartment complex where the victim lived, it was a small complex and had a comfy feel to it, the three CSIS went under the crime scene tape and where greeted by a young man with blonde hair in a police uniform and Captain James "Jim" Brass.

"OK people, the coroner is in the apartment where the body is, Scott Michaels here was the first officer on the scene." James said motioning to Scott who nodded politely. "The media is all over this due to the death's nature so play your cards close to your chest."

"Any other information?" Evan asked.

"And you are?" James replied.

"Evan Mitchell sir, it's my first night on the job." Evan introduced himself.

"James Brass, Homicide, welcome aboard." James replied. "The tenant is listed as Kara Stevenson, 17 years old; the landlord's already confirmed that Kara and the victim are one in the same." James said pointing to a portly man speaking with another officer.

"Thanks Jim, we'll take it from here." Nick said as he went up the stairs to the crime scene, they stopped at apartment number 20, the crime scene, and entered.

The apartment was small, just small enough to satisfy a woman the victim's age, the victim was lying face up on the bed, her eyes were still open revealing them to be blue, she had shoulder length light brown hair and she was wearing a black tanktop and a matching skirt, but the thing that was most notable was that she was surrounded by drugs. Nick shook his head sadly.

"I hate cases like this." Nick said with a sigh as he and the other CSIS put their gloves on, the assistant coroner looked up from examining the body.

"Hey guys." Dave "Super Dave" Phillips greeted as he took the liver temperature. "Body's just entered Rigor Mortis, that and her liver temp suggest that she's been dead around 26 hours." Dave said standing up. "I'll be waiting outside until you guys tell me to move the body to the morgue." Dave said walking out of the apartment.

"OK, Evan, you and me will have a closer look at the body and the bed, Warrick, you up for processing the apartment?" Warrick nodded and grabbed his kit and Nick lead the younger CSI over.

"So what are we looking for here?" Evan asked looking over the bed.

"Fibres, anything to confirm if it's a suicide or a homicide, seaman, those kinds of things." Nick replied as he took a picture of the body, it was then that Evan noticed wounds on Kara's arms.

"Hey Nick, these look like defensive wounds to you?" Evan asked pointing to the wounds on the victim's arms, Nick saw them and nodded.

"They do actually; I think we can rule out suicide." Nick replied as he took pictures of the wounds.

"We've got blood over here, small amount and it doesn't look like blood spatter to me." Warrick said taking a sample for DNA. As he stood up he spotted a picture on the coffee table featuring her, an Asian woman and a slightly younger woman, obviously friends of the victim.

"Look's like she was pretty popular." Warrick mused eyeing the photo.

"Could they be our first suspects?" Evan asked noticing the photo, before he could answer they herd shouting outside, curious Evan looked outside and saw the women from the photo trying to get past the line.

"At least we didn't have to track them down." Evan muttered as Nick and Warrick looked as well.

"We'll interview them and the landlord once we're done processing here, Evan would you mind hitting the lights?" Evan turned of the lights in the apartment and Nick turned on the UV light to check for seaman on the bed, finding none Evan turned on the lights, Nick spotted a fingerprint on the bedside table and dusted it, finding only a partial print he lifted it and bagged it.

"That's all the evidence I can see, we'll get the coroner to move the body and we'll interview the landlord and the two girls from the photo." Nick said as they walked out of the apartment, Warrick told Dave that he was good to go as far as the body was concerned and Dave motioned to the coroner team to bring the stretcher in, the three CSIS walked up to the suspects Warrick interviewing the landlord and Evan and Nick interviewing the women.

"Excuse me; can we talk to you for a minute?" Nick asked the women, the Asian woman raised an eyebrow at them and the younger one shrugged.

"Sure I guess." Answered the younger woman.

"OK, we're going to need your names first." Nick said taking out his notepad.

"Hold on, I want to see some ID first." The younger woman said folding her arms across her chest, Nick and Evan showed them their badges and she sighed.

"I'm Christine Nyoko; she's Emily Swan, happy now?" The Asian woman asked agitated.

"Very, do you know Kara Stevenson?" Evan asked

"Yeah, we're friends, why is something wrong with her?" Emily asked starting to get worried; the sight of the stretcher being moved into the coroner's van didn't exactly help either.

"Christine, Emily, there's no easy way to say this....."

Evan could tell from their facial expressions that they where starting to catch on to what had happened to their friend, taking a deep breath Evan continued.

"Kara's dead, I can't really say anymore as it's an ongoing investigation."

"Your....you're lying!" Emily said in desperation but Evan simply shook his head.

"I'm sorry for your loss; did Kara have any depression issues in the past?" Nick asked giving the two women Kleenex tissues so they could wipe their eyes.

"Depression? Err, yeah a couple of years back, nothing serious ever came out of it though." Christine said after thinking for a few minutes. "She takes....took meds to help her with her with that though." She added. "You'll have to excuse me; I have a lot to sort out."

"What she said." Emily added.

"Sure, but if you think of anything that could help with the investigation give us a call, OK?" Nick asked handing them his card.

"Will do." Christine said walking off, Emily soon followed her and Nick and Evan walked over to Warrick who had just started interviewing the landlord.

"Mr. Sabewlsky? Warrick Brown I'm with the Las Vegas Crime Lab, can I ask you a few questions?"

"I've already told your colleague all I know Mr. Brown, but if it helps I'll tell you to." The Landlord replied.

"OK, first can you tell me what happened?" Warrick said getting ready to jot down some notes.

"It was a typical Thursday evening for me, I was going through some paperwork when I noticed Kara hadn't been paying her rent, I went up to her apartment to remind her and when she didn't answer the door I got worried, I used my master key to get in and that was when I saw her, god it seems so meaningless now, the whole rent thing, I'm going to miss her, she was a good kid."

"It worried you that she didn't reply?"

"She typically didn't take long to answer the door usually around five minutes at the most, and I knew she couldn't be asleep because she was a night owl." The landlord explained with a sigh.

"Did she have any enemies?"

"No, like I said she was a good kid. Got on well with her neighbours, we even organised an intervention for one of her friends with her." This caught Warrick's attention.

"For whom and for what?"

"It was one of the girls I saw your colleagues talking to a few minutes ago, the younger one....Emily I think her name is, as for what, well she had a bad drug addiction, I mean REALLY bad, it was a good thing we intervened before the drugs did permanent damage, I think she was doing Coke if it helps."

"Very much so, I'm going to need your DNA and fingerprints." The landlord blinked.

"Why? I've done nothing wrong."

"Never said you did, its protocol." The landlord didn't need much convincing once Warrick said that and happily gave his DNA and fingerprints, Warrick gave him his card and turned to Evan and Nick.

"We'll have to confirm that Kara died of an overdose and find out if Coke was the drug she overdosed on to see if Emily's past drug use has an effect on her status as a suspect." Warrick said.

"And the only way to find that out is to wait for the Autopsy results." Evan said. "So what will we do in the meantime?"

"Go back to the lab and process the evidence we already have." Nick replied opening up the van's trunk, the CSIS loaded the evidence into the back and entered the car.


	2. Bloody Murder

Sophie noticed the male rookie leave with Warrick and Nick as she and Catherine approached the van, they seemed to be getting along well from what she could see but before she could say hi to them they entered the car and drove off.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Catherine asked noticing her colleague's mind being elsewhere.

"Hmm?" Sophie snapped back to reality shaking her head. "Sorry, I was daydreaming. Were we going again?"

"Tangiers, you know the grizzly homicide?" Catherine answered as they entered the car; Sophie simply nodded in response and buckled up.

The trip to the hotel was relatively short, they where able to get to the hotel quickly as there wasn't that much traffic down the strip, they left the van and grabbed the kits, entered the hotel and was greeted by Detective Vega.

"Catherine, new kid, I hope your ready for a bloodbath because that's exactly what we have here." Vega greeted them and he leads them to the elevator.

"The name's Sophie, by the way." Sophie stated as they entered the elevator. "What information do we have so far?"

"Vic's a male, 45 years old. The room isn't registered to anyone so there's no reason for him to be in there in the first place, the lights don't work in the room and there's a lot of blood."

"Who discovered the vic?" Catherine asked as they stepped out of the elevator.

"Adriana Lopez, no relation to J-L0, she works as a cleaning maid for the hotel, I have asked for a translator for her." Vega noticed the confused look on the two women's faces. "She's a legal Mexican immigrant, she doesn't speak English so we need someone to translate the questions you'll have for her into Spanish."

"Any ID on the vic?" Sophie asked as they neared the room.

"The coroner arrived five minutes ago; you'd better ask him about that." Vega replied, they stopped at the room nearest the fire exit where the crime scene tape was.

"Welcome to Murder Central." Catherine said as Vega directed them to a young Mexican woman.

"This is Adriana Lopez, as you know she discovered the victim." Vega introduced the CSIS to the maid. Just as Vega was about to wonder what was taking the translator so long a Mexican man in a waiter's uniform approached them.

"You asked for a translator for my wife?" The man asked.

"Yes, we have a few questions for your wife regarding what happened, she OK with that?"

Sophie asked, the husband turned towards his wife and asked her that in Spanish, she replied and the man turned towards her.

"She is fine with that; however she asks that you be considerate as she has had quite the shock this evening."

"Will do, I know you've had a tough time this evening Adriana but can you tell me what happened?" Sophie asked, the husband translated the question for his wife and when she answered back the husband translated.

"It was near the end of my shift and the only thing I had to do before I ended my shift was prepare that room for some visiting tourists, I entered the room and I notice that it is dark and that the lights weren't working, I opened the curtain and as I turned around I stepped in some blood, I followed the blood trail with my eyes and I saw the poor man strapped to the bed, I checked for a pulse and when I realized that he was dead I screamed and told my co worker to call the police."

She nodded in understanding and jotted it down.

"Any idea why the lights weren't working?" The husband translated the question and Adriana simply shrugged her shoulders.

"Was the victim a guest at the hotel before?" Sophie asked, when the question was translated Adriana shrugged again and told the husband her reply.

"You would have to ask the manager about that, I haven't been employed here very long and even if I was I don't usually talk with the guests." The husband replied.

"OK, I'm going to need your fingerprints and DNA Adriana." The husband, though surprised, translated what Sophie said for Adriana and she blinked in surprise, she replied and the reply was translated.

"What do you need those for? All I did was discover the body."

"You were the first on the scene Adriana, its protocol that the first witness on the scene gives his/her DNA and fingerprints." The husband translated the reply and Adriana sighed and replied in Spanish, the husband was quick to translate.

"Very well then, do what you have to do so I can get back home." Sophie took the DNA and fingerprints and the couple left, she bagged the evidence and met Catherine at the doorway.

"Not bad for your first interview." Catherine complemented her colleague before holding the door open for her, she entered and almost immediately she felt the urge to throw up.

The room was covered in blood, a majority of the blood was on the bed which was where the victim laid, he was a tall, bald man who was tied to the bed via ripped bed sheets and a blindfold and ducktape covered his eyes and mouth, the two CSIS where quick to notice a rather nasty throat wound that was amongst the victim's injuries, Dr. Al Robins was busy taking the liver temperature when they entered.

"Hi doc." Catherine greeted and the coroner looked up.

"Hi Catherine, Sophie, I know your probably wondering where Dave is but he's busy with the suicide in Henderson so you have me instead." Al explained. "Preliminary cause of death seems to be the throat wound but I'll be able to confirm that once I get him to Autopsy, liver temperature puts his time of death around 4-5 hours ago."

"Would you mind checking for ID Al?" Catherine asked and Al nodded, he checked the pockets and produced a wallet, when he opened the wallet he raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Well, here's something surprising, it appears our vic was a cop." Al explained showing the cop badge to the two women; right next to it was a picture of the cop with his name underneath.

"Joey Mulox, we'll ask Brass if he remembers that name when we get back to LVPD." Catherine saidtaking a picture of the victim. "Sophie, you process the rest of the room, I'll get to work on the bed."

"Yes mom." She replied jokingly grabbing her crime scene kit, out of the corner of her eye she saw Catherine smile slightly as she herd the comment, shaking her head she swabbed one of the many blood pools on the floor for DNA and noticed a fake fingernail on the floor, figuring it could be something left behind by an assailant she picked it up with the tweezers and bagged it, she swabbed another blood pool.

"How's the processing going?" Catherine asked poking up from were she was.

"Pretty good, mostly bloodstains but that's to be expected." Sophie answered. "What about you?"

"Found Seaman on the bed, a hair with a skin tag on it which I doubt belongs to Joey since he's bald and the usual bloodstain." Catherine answered.

"Did you say Seaman?" Sophie asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, why?"

"Because I found a fake fingernail over here, seems Joey had company just before death."

"Could've been lured here by sex, all the signs seem to point to him being tortured to death." Catherine added, Sophie shone her flashlight into the lightbulbs and saw that they were shattered.

"Well, this explains why the lights weren't working." Sophie noted spotted some GSR on around the light bulbs and shattered glass "Seems they were shot out."

"Weird, LVPD didn't get a "Shots Fired" call today." Catherine said.

"Maybe they used a silencer." Sophie contributed as she started collecting the glass and GSR.

"That's very likely, though I doubt we'll find a gun here since the perp most likely took it with him." Catherine replied standing up. "That's all the evidence from the bed; you find anything else of use?"

Sophie shook her head. "I've swabbed all the blood stains in the room, and I can't see anything else we can use."

Catherine nodded. "OK, we'll get the fingernail, blood, seaman and hair to DNA when we get back and we'll wait for the autopsy results."

"Didn't miss anything did I?"

The two women looked up and saw Sara Sidle; the attractive brunette was holding hr crime scene kit."

"Hey Sara." Catherine greeted.

"Hey, sorry I was late, traffic was really bad." Sara admitted before seeing Sophie. "And I take it she's one of the newcomers?"

"That's me, name's Sophie." Sophie introduced herself.

"I'm Sara Sidle, glad to have you aboard." Sara replied. "Gil told me to meet you two at the hotel when I arrived at LVPD so we'll be working together on this one." Sara explained before sighing. "Though it appears that you guys beat me to the evidence."

"Don't worry about it, we'll let you do all the processing when we get a warrant to search some place." Sophie replied.

"Thanks kid, where now?" Sara asked.

"Back to the crime lab, we have evidence to process and Al has an autopsy to perform."

"Two actually, Dave just paged me telling me that the suicide victim is ready for autopsy." Al said entering the room with a coroner team behind him. Some of the younger, inexperienced coroners gagged at the sight of the body and Al assisted them in bagging the body. Al left the room telling Catherine he'll page her when he's done with the body.

"OK guys, back to the lab, I'll have Vega track down Joey's next of kin but in the meantime we have evidence to process." Catherine said as she left the room, Sophie and Sara followed and within a few minutes they where back in the van on the way back to the lab.


	3. Questions answered, more questions asked

Evan, Nick and Warrick arrived at the crime lab twenty minutes after finishing up at the crime scene, as soon as they entered Brass stepped forward.

"I've managed to track down Kara's parents, once Al does the Autopsy and confirms the cause of death I'll bring them in to identify the body." Brass said, before he could continue he saw Catherine waving him over. "If you excuse me I Catherine wants me.....and not in the way you're thinking Evan." Brass stated noticing the cheeky grin on the young CSI'S face, Evan just put his arms up in a defensive manner and Brass walked off.

"OK, Evan you get the blood to DNA and Warrick you get the fingerprint to Mandy, we don't have much evidence to go on so our best bet is to wait for the Autopsy results." Nick instructed the two CSIS and they went on there way, Evan stopped and turned to Nick.

"Where's the DNA lab?" Evan asked slightly confused.

"Come on. I'll show you." Nick said leading him down the hallway; they soon arrived at the DNA lab where Wendy Simms was starting to get to work.

"Hey Nick." Wendy greeted smiling at the CSI; Evan entered with Nick and gave her the DNA evidence.

"Wendy, meet Evan Mitchell, he's started work here tonight. Evan, this is Wendy Simms she's the DNA Tech." Nick introduced the two and they shook hands.

"Welcome aboard kid, word of advice, steer clear of Hodges as much as possible." Wendy commented.

"Hodges? The Trace Tech?" Evan asked and Wendy nodded.

"Trace Tech, bane of my existence, biggest asshole in Las Vegas, whatever you want to call him." Wendy said with a smile. "So what have you got for me gentlemen?"

"Blood and a DNA sample." Nick answered and she nodded. "Blood was found on the floor of the victim's apartment, DNA sample's from the landlord as he was the one to discover the body."

Wendy entered the samples into the computer, at first she compared the two samples against each other and there was no luck.

"I'll run the blood through CODIS; I'll page you when I get a hit." Wendy said and the two CSIS took at as their cue to leave the lab and let Wendy do her work passing Catherine, Sophie and Sara on the way out. Just then Nick got a page from Al, Kara's autopsy was complete.

"Evan, would you mind picking up Warrick from the Fingerprints lab?" Nick asked and Evan went of in search of the lab. Nick entered the Autopsy room and was greeted by Al.

"What you got Al? Nick asked approaching the table.

"Several things, first of all the Cause of Death." Al answered. "Cause of death was a drug overdose. the toxicology report turned up Cocaine in her blood stream." Al said pointing to an injection mark on the victim's arm. "The drug was most likely injected here and her body simply couldn't cope with its purity." At that moment Evan and Warrick entered the room, Nick filled them in on the details and they nodded.

"How pure was the cocaine?" Evan asked.

"97%." Al answered and the Nick and Warrick whistled.

"No wonder she ODed, if she had survived she probably would've been brain dead." Warrick said and Al passed them the victim's cloths.

"These are for you; I have no need for them here." Al said and Nick bagged the cloths. "Rape Kit was run, not only wasn't their any sign of rape but no sign of any sexual activity." Al said.

"So in short, she was a virgin." Evan stated and Al nodded. Al passed them a DNA swab and fingerprints next.

"These are her DNA and fingerprints. And that's everything, If you see Catherine, Sophie and Sara tell them that the autopsy on their victim is finished."

"Will do Al." Nick said and they exited the Autopsy room.

"Well, Emily's definitely a suspect." Evan said as they entered the break room.

"True but we need something that places her at the crime scene." Nick said sitting down, a triumphant looking Greg soon joined them.

"Someone's in a good mood." Warrick observed.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Greg said as he started pouring himself a cup of coffee. "I just finished the Hit and Run case."

"Already?" Nick asked surprised.

"Yeah, I was able to trace the license plate number imprinted on the victim's leg to a couple living half a block away from the crime scene, the car didn't belong to them rather it belonged to their teenage son, when I interviewed him he confessed to the murder being an accident due to him being a bit "preoccupied" if you catch my meaning."

It didn't take them long to realize what Greg was talking about.

"And the evidence supported this?" Nick asked.

"Well, there was seaman in the car, lipstick on the perp's jeans and blood on the bumper, so yeah it did."

"In that case, nice job." Evan said with a grin, Greg returned the grin before realizing he hadn't introduced himself yet.

"Sorry, forgot to introduce myself, Greg Sanders, before you and Sophie came along I was the resident rookie." Greg said with a smile.

"Evan Mitchell, nice to meet you." Evan replied.

"So how's your case turning out?" Greg asked taking a seat, Nick explained the situation so far and Greg winced when he herd how pure the Cocaine was.

"Wow, either she got really unlucky when she purchased the coke or it was intentional." Greg contributed, Nick's pager went of and he checked it.

"DNA results on the blood are in." Nick said as he, Warrick and Evan left the break room and went to the DNA lab.

"I here you have results on the blood we found?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, DNA'S female and we got a match to a juvie record." Wendy answered showing them the computer screen.

"Emily Swan; arrested two years ago for Shoplifting and Drug Possession." Nick read of the screen. "Says here that her mom managed to get the judge to not try her as an adult due to the drug charge."

"How so?" Evan asked.

"Because her mom's a lawyer." Warrick said. "I knew I recognised her surname from somewhere, Elaine Swan, her mother, is a famous lawyer here in the city."

"Regardless of who her mum is this combined with her past drug use should be enough for a search warrant for Emily's apartment." Nick said walking out of the room, "I'll get Brass to hit up a judge to get that warrant and track down the address of her apartment." Nick said but before he could Warrick's pager went of.

"You do that, Mandy's managed to get a hit of the partial print, says it's urgent." Warrick said leading Evan to the fingerprints lab, they reached the fingerprints lab and Mandy Webster looked up.

"Hey guys." Mandy greeted.

"Hey, so what's so urgent?"

"Well first, was a Scott Michaels the first officer on the scene?" Mandy asked and Warrick nodded. "Because the print belongs to him."

"Are you certain?" Evan asked.

"Positive."

"We'd better inform Internal Affairs, they would want a word with Scott over this evidence." Warrick said looking at the results on the computer screen,

"So where first? Internal Affairs or Brass's office for the warrant?" Evan asked.

"Internal Affairs, after that we'll get the warrant." Warrick said leading Evan out of the fingerprints lab.

(An hour earlier)

Sophie, Catherine and Sara had just arrived after their trip to the crimescene at the Tangiers, Catherine and Sara had spent the better half of the ride back getting to know the younger CSI better and making sure that Sara was up to date on the case, Catherine parked the car and the three women stepped.

"Okay, first priority is to find Brass. Sooner we find out what kind of cop Joey Mulox was the sooner we can start figuring out who did it and why."

Catherine told the two CSIS as they entered the building, it wasn't long before they found Brass talking to Evan, Nick and Warrick, Catherine waved him over and Brass saw her and apparently said something that amused Evan based on his facial expression. Brass walked over as the male CSIS went on their way.

"What can I do for you ladies?"

"You can give us information, the victim at the Tangiers was a cop by the name of Joey Mulox, name ring a bell?" Catherine asked.

"Joey? Yeah I remember him; guy was so corrupt that he'd make sure his own mother got a life sentence if it meant an extra pay day." Brass said.

"So he was involved with the mob?" Sophie asked.

"Sophie, that's an understatement, he may as well been having dinner with the mob bosses, you see he didn't tie himself down to just one boss, he accepted bribed from anyone, from child molesters to petty thieves." James told the young CSI.

"Any enemies?" Sara asked.

"Enemies? Try the entire police force." James said with a scoff. "Everyone knew Joey was dirty but he was a textbook expert in forensics and therefore he knew how to cover his tracks and was extremely thorough about it, if he was a CSI he'd give Gil a run for his money that's for sure."

"Was he caught?" Catherine asked.

"Eventually yes, even geniuses slip up eventually and he left a very incriminating print at the scene of a drug bust, I'll give the guy credit, at first he didn't crack under interrogation but after a while he told us everything." James answered.

"How so?" Catherine asked.

"That print I mentioned? It matched a print found on a murder weapon used to kill two prostitutes who had betrayed their pimp. He was given immunity in that case in exchange for ratting out everyone he worked for and the pimp that ordered the murder of the prostitute, he knew that if he didn't testify he'd be put on Death Row so he testified." Brass replied.

"Must've pissed of a lot of mob guys." Sophie commented.

"Yeah but he kind of went underground after his forced retirement, the last time I herd anything about him was when his wife at the time filed for divorce and even then he kept public appearances to a minimum." James said, before any other questions could be answered Catherine's pager went of, the autopsy was complete.

"Well Brass, thanks for the information but we have a former cop turned DB to visit." Catherine said leading the other two CSIS down the hallway.

"Anytime ladies." Brass called after them, Catherine led them to the Autopsy room and entered it, and Al was standing over Joey's body.

"Glad you three could make it, the cause of death was Exsanguination, and the throat wound was a contributed factor." Al explained motioning to the wound, "Though he went through hell prior to death, first several ribs where broken by a blunt object, long and narrow based on the shape, with one rib broken it's hurts to breath but with several it would've been agonising, then the same object broke his jaw in multiple places and here's the gruesome part." Al said opening Joey's eyelids revealing the eyes to be missing.

"Someone gouged out his eyes." Sophie said wincing.

"Exactly, looks like the object was sharp and narrow, I can tell you one thing, the throat wound was caused by the same object." Al said closing the eyelids.

"Are those bullet wounds in the arms and legs?" Sara asked noticing them.

"Indeed, each bullet hit a major artery which started the bleeding, the perp was obviously in a rush to kill him as the throat wound has several telltale signs that he was in a hurry to finish the job."

"One more thing Al, I found seamen on the bed where the body was found, any indication that Joey had sex before death?" Catherine asked and Al shook his head.

"None, though I found a substance in the nasal cavity that may of been used to sedate Joey, I've already sent it off to trace and I told Hodges to let you now when the results came back." Al answered knowing why they where asking that.

"Is that everything? We have DNA evidence to get to Wendy." Sara asked.

"Well allow me to add two more pieces of evidence to that pile, the victim's DNA and fingerprints for you to use." Al said passing the evidence to Catherine.

"Anything else?" Sophie asked.

"Not much of note, a stomach ulcer and some interesting finds in his stomach contents."

"Define interesting." Catherine said.

"Seems that, despite the cheap cloths that we found him in, he had expensive tastes, caviar, vodka, the works." Al said.

"Thanks Al, see you around." Catherine said as she, Sara and left the autopsy room.

"Well, we know Joey didn't have sex before death but who did?" Sophie asked as they left the Autopsy room.

"Good question, the DNA from the seamen will be able to answer that though." Sara said taking the seamen swab and the fake fingernail hoping that Wendy would be able to get epithelials of the fingernail, Catherine handed Sophie the evidence bag holding the hair that was collected from the bed and she carried all the blood samples over to DNA.

"_Wendy's going to have a heck of a time with this much evidence." _Catherine thought as the three women entered the DNA lab.

"Great, more DNA evidence, as if I wasn't busy enough." Wendy muttered when she saw the CSIS carrying the evidence.

"Nice to see you too Wendy." Sara replied.

"Sorry but as you can see I'm busy with the Henderson homicide." Wendy replied taking the evidence from the CSIS.

"Homicide? I thought that case was a suicide?" Catherine asked.

"Defensive wounds told a different story." Wendy answered and Catherine nodded realizing what she meant. "I'll page you when I get the results on the DNA but that may not be until I'm finished processing the DNA from Nick, Warrick and Evan's case."

"We understand. Besides we're still on Vega to track down Joey's next of kin." Catherine replied as they left the DNA room.

Author's note: Slightly different style I know but I was unsure of how else to do it, expect the next chapter to be up in a few days.


	4. Sex, Drugs and Forensics

Warrick and Evan were on their way to the internal affairs office, Nick had paged them letting them know that they had the warrant for Emily's apartment and the location of the apartment, Warrick paged him back letting him know who the print belonged to and where they where headed and told Nick to meat them in the garage.

Soon they arrived at the office, a short man with brown hair and blue eyes sat their doing some paperwork, Warrick's knock caught his attention.

"May I help you?" The man said irritated.

"We have some information regarding a police officer that you'll be interested in." Evan said.

"Well, you certainly came to the right place young man, so what IS this information."

"First, you'd better know about the case it relates to...."

"No need, I had herd one of the IA officers saying something about a Suicide that turned out to be a Homicide in Henderson." The man said.

"One of the evidence pieces we collected from the scene was a partial print near the body; the print came back to a Scott Michaels."

"Michaels? This certainly IS interesting." The man said with a smile. "Michaels has been under investigation for the past few months due to allegations of bribary and tampering with evidence but we couldn't find anything that stuck, until now."

"Did you say "Tampering with evidence?" Evan asked.

"Yes but before I continue I don't believe I caught your name." The man replied.

"Oh sorry, Evan Mitchell, I joined the crime lab tonight." Evan said.

"Ah, nice to meet you Evan, stay out of trouble and this will be our only meeting." The man said. "As I was saying, yes certain pieces of evidence went missing from scenes of drug related crimes where Michaels was the first officer on the scene."

"The victim's cause of death was a drug overdose; could Michaels have stolen evidence from the scene?" Warrick asked.

"It seems very likely and since you know the COD I think it's safe to assume the coroner can confirm that." Warrick and Evan nodded. "We'll get on the hunt for Michaels ASAP, as we both have a bested interest I'll page you as soon as we find him."

"Good enough for me, we have a search warrant to execute if you'll excuse us." Warrick said as he and Evan left the office. They soon met Nick at the garage who was leaning against the car.

"Hey guys." Nick greeted showing them the warrant for Emily's apartment. "The judge was reluctant to issue the warrant out of respect for Emily's grief but he eventually caved in, you lean anything from Internal Affairs."

"We learned that the limited amount of evidence at the crime scene was no coincidence, Michaels is being investigated for Bribery and evidence tampering, basically if there was a drug related crime like the one we're investigating and he was the first on the scene evidence would conveniently disappear." Warrick explained and Nick's expression turned to one of anger.

"Son of a bitch, let's hope IA can track him down quickly." Nick said shaking his head. "Regardless we'd better go with our other lead in the meantime." Nick said hopping in the front seat, Evan rode shotgun and Warrick sat in the back.

"So where to?" Evan asked.

"Henderson, Emily's apartment is half a block away from Kara's apartment." Nick answered starting the car.

The drive to Henderson was pretty uneventful, no calls from Evan's girlfriend this time and they where soon at the apartment complex, Warrick, Evan and Nick went to the landlord's office, this time the landlord was a small woman.

"May I help you gentlemen?" The landlord asked.

"We need to know what apartment Emily Swan lives in." Nick said as the three of them showed their badges.

"And I suppose you have a warrant?" The landlord asked and Nick showed it to her, after reading it through she let out an aggravated sigh. "She lives in apartment 17, second floor of the apartments closest to my office."

"Thank you kindly." Nick said taking back the warrant, they went to Emily's apartment and Nick knocked on the door.

"Just a minute." Emily's voice called from the other side.

"Emily Swan this is LVPD, we have a warrant to search your premises." Warrick said making sure his voice was loud enough for her to here. Warrick could here her swear a mile away.

"Would you guys mind waiting a minute? I just got out the shower." Emily asked.

"You've got two minutes to get dressed and that's it." Warrick said as Evan set the timer on his cellphone to two minutes, about a minute later Emily opened the door, the redhead had obviously through her cloths on and her hair wasn't even dry yet.

"May I see that warrant?" Emily asked and Nick passed it to her. She grabbed her cell and starting dialling.

"I'm calling mom, in case you didn't know...."

"She's a lawyer, I know, I've testified in a few cases against her." Warrick interrupted, Emily just rolled her eyes and waited for her mom to answer, she groaned after a few minutes and snapped the phone shut.

"Great, the line's busy." She muttered.

"Well in that case you can answer some questions for us. We have blood evidence that places you inside Emily's apartment, and it looks like blood from a nosebleed to me, care to explain that?" Nick asked.

"What's there to explain? I had a nosebleed their two days ago, I thought Kara would've cleaned it up but given the circumstances it's obvious why she didn't." She answered.

"A nosebleed? Caused by cocaine use?" Warrick said earning a annoyed glare from the 16 year old.

"NO! Look I went through rehab after Kara and practically everyone from her apartment complex organised an intervention for me and I'm sure as hell not going back." Emily said. "And yes, I know that drugs are a hard habit to drop, and besides if I hadn't dropped it then I definitely would've earlier when Kara had an overdose."

"Wait, how did you know it was an overdose that killed her?"

"It's all over the news, duh!" She answered. "Now if you excuse me I'm trying mom's cellphone again." She said getting her cell out. This time she seemed to go through as there was no growls of frustration, knowing what was going to happen Nick and Warrick went to work whilst Evan observed, they didn't find much at first that was relevant to the case, seamen stains on her sofa, water on the floor (confirming her story about just getting out of the shower) and some typical stuff a woman her age would want in her apartment, well a woman who was obviously a tomboy anyway, before Nick could open a drawer that caught his attention the sounds of footsteps entered the area and a woman that Warrick and Nick recognised immediately appeared in the doorway.

"May I see the warrant that you have for my daughter's apartment?" Elaine Swan said, she was basically a 46 year old version of Emily right down to the same hair colour. Nick passed Evan the warrant and he passed it to Elaine, Emily stood there with a smug look on her face which the CSIS chose to ignore.

"I'm calling the judge that issued this warrant." Elaine announced to the CSIS as Emily passed her the cell.

"You do that; in the meantime maybe your daughter can explain this?" Nick said showing a bag of cocaine that was in the drawer; Emily's smug look disappeared in an instant,

"I.....I have no idea how that got there." She stammered. Nick just shook his head and motioned to the officer to place her in cuffs.

"Just be thankful this isn't a drug investigation but if this coke matches the coke that was in Kara's bloodstream you can be charged with manslaughter and not even you mom will be able to convince the judge to not try you as an adult." Nick told her, Emily said nothing nor did her mother as Emily was lead away.

"So that's that?" Evan asked stepping out of the apartment.

"Not quite, we still have to match the drug's purity to the drug that was in Kara's bloodstream to get a conviction." Nick answered.

"Say it doesn't match, where we go from there." Evan asked.

"We track down the dealer." Warrick said. "If we're luck Emily will provide us with the name of her dealer from when she did drugs and she and Kara shared dealers."

"So we'd better get the coke to the lab." Nick said bagging the bag containing the coke, they entered the van this time with Evan in the driver's seat.

"You can drive?" Warrick asked getting in the passenger seat.

"Yep, pretty damn well too!" Evan answered before getting a thought. "Hey Nick, did you dust that bag for prints?"

"Yeah I did, I got another partial but it'll give Mandy something to do."

Evan started the van and drove to the lab with the cop car with Emily in the back following them and Elaine following the cop car in her car.

"You guys mind if I put a CD on?" Evan asked and the older CSIS shrugged.

"Go ahead, what do you listen to?" Warrick asked.

"Old School Metal." Evan answered putting the CD in, what followed was what sounded like Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train but something was different about the guitarist.

"This doesn't sound like Randy Rhoades." Nick stated.

"It's not, that's me on the guitar." Evan answered and the two CSIS looked at him surprised.

"You play guitar?" Nick asked.

"In my spare time, I'm in a band to boot, Ozzy Osbourne tribute band to be pacific."

"So you fancy yourself as Zack Wylde?" Warrick asked.

"More along the lines of Jake E Lee." Evan answered.

The rest of the trip was spent listening to the CD, the production was bad but that was the only bad thing about it, the two CSIS where impressed with Evan's guitar skills and 30 minutes later they where back at the crime lab and Emily was in a holding cell, Warrick went off to narcotics to get the drug tested and Nick paged Brass.

"We'll interview Emily while we wait for results." Nick told the younger CSI and they went to the interview room, Emily, Brass and Elaine where already in the interview room when they entered.

"I can't believe you people are harassing my daughter like this, she's just lost one of her closest friends and you aren't going after the dealer?" Elaine said the moment Nick and Evan entered the room.

"We are trying to track the dealer down but first we have other suspects to consider, like your daughter." Nick said, he herd Elaine whisper "don't say anything" to her daughter who sat there with her arms crossed.

"I'm going to ask you again, how did the drugs get in your apartment?" Brass said.

"I don't know OK, I've been off drugs since...."

"Your rehab stint? Look kid this isn't about whether or not you do drugs but those are the same type of drug that caused Kara's overdose."

"My daughter learned from her mistakes the first time around, I had to practically blow the judge to get him to not try her as an adult." Elaine said,

"That maybe true but what if the drugs match the drugs found in Kara's system?"

"Those could've come from anywhere...."

"Drugs that are 97% pure? I think not."

"97%?! Are you serious? That was how pure the drugs where?" Emily asked shocked.

"Is that a confession?" Brass asked

"NO! Look I have an alibi for Kara's time of death."

"That was yesterday Emily, are you sure about that?"

"Yes, an embarrassing one but an alibi none the less, I was with my boyfriend at the time...."

"That punk that doesn't believe in waiting until marriage? Young lady you now how I feel about him....."

"This is like something out of Jerry Springer." Evan whispered to Nick as the two women argued, Nick grinned and nodded.

"All we need is Steve Wilkos." Nick replied before turning to the arguing mother and daughter.

"Emily, you alibi, PLEASE!"

"Like I said, I was with my boyfriend, we were driving to our makeout spot, I was getting him in the mood when we hit some kid, next thing I know he barely escapes a murder charge."

There was an auquad silence in the interview room, just then the door opened and Warrick entered.

"Emily's free to go, the drugs that we found in the apartment where nowhere near as pure as the drugs in Kara's bloodstream." Warrick said noticing the auquad silence. "Bad timing?"

"Actually good timing, Emily before you go we need your help in tracking down you and Kara's drug dealer."

Emily's reaction surprised everyone as they expecting her to defend her dead friend, however instead she sighed.

"Your right, we shared the same drug dealer, his name was Ice Cold, don't ask me his real name as no one knew it, not even those closest to him crime wise."

"You got a description?" Evan asked.

"He's tall, African American, muscular and looks like he could kill you without a second thought. I haven't seen him since I made amends with him as part of the program though."

"Is my daughter free to go now?"

"She is, we'll post an officer at the front door of her apartment as well in case Ice Cold is our man and he decides to try the same thing he did with Kara." Brass said and the two women left, just then Nick got a page and he grinned at it.

"Print came back, Michaels has been a busy boy."

"He planted the drugs." Evan realized rubbing his chin.

"Which means he's on Ice Cold's payroll, if IA didn't like the previous evidence on Michaels they'll definitely love this!" Warrick said.

"I'll page the IA officer we talked to...." Evan was cut off by another page, he looked at it and grinned.

"IA'S found Michaels, they're tailing him now!"

"Great, can't wait to interview him." Brass said rubbing his hands.

"But first, I think we'd better tell Greggo that the hit and run case and ours are connected."


	5. Of receptionists and security cameras

Sophie, Sara and Catherine sat in the break room waiting for the results on the massive amounts of DNA collected from the crime scene at the Tangiers, they had seen Evan and Warrick pass the room two times and on the second time they looked pissed but other than that nothing had happened. Greg entered the room shortly after Evan and Nick passed.

"Hey there ladies, how's the case going?" Greg greeted.

"It's going fine, besides aren't you on that Hit and Run case?" Sophie asked.

"I was but I finished it earlier, some unlucky kid was about to get it on with his girlfriend and accidently hit the kid, DA'S not going to press charges though as it was technically an accident." Greg explained. "Right now I'm hoping that Grissom gets another case and I'm put on it as I'm bored out of my mind."

"Even if it was a decomp case?" Sara asked teasingly.

"OK that's the exception, along with dead children, child molestation cases and cases that I, in general, am not comfortable with." Greg replied pouring himself a cup of coffee. "You ladies want some coffee?"

"Thanks but I don't feel like drinking after the Tangiers crime scene and autopsy." Sophie replied.

"Yeah, I herd that's a nasty case, I also herd the victim used to be a cop."

"Not only that but he was the dirtiest cop in town," Catherine replied. "Joey Mulox to be precise."

"Ah, I've herd of him, wasn't he a guy that's so dirty that he was hated by everyone?"

"That's the guy." Catherine said. Just then Sophie got a page.

"DNA Results are in." Sophie announced to her colleagues.

"Good, let's go get them." Catherine said but before that Sara got a page.

"Trace results are in. I say Sophie goes to see Hodges about them."

"Agreed, the rookie gets to be tortured by Hodges." Catherine said.

"Not the best choice of words Catherine." Sophie said shaking her head. "He can't be THAT bad can he?"

"You have no idea, and for that you have my sympathies." Greg said.

"What? You're not going to stick up for a rookie in distress?"

"I'm not on the case remember, and the further I stay away from Hodges the better." Sophie groaned.

"OK fine, I'll go, but if he is as bad as you say he is then there's going to be hell to pay." Sophie teased walking out of the break room, Catherine led Sara to the DNA lab and Sophie went off to find the trace lab, she quickly found it and Hodges.

"Either there's a sexy new intern here in the crime lab or a sexy rookie." Hodges said with a grin when she entered.

"Don't bother with pick up lines Hodges, I've herd them all during my time at WLVU." Sophie said rolling her eyes. "Yes I am one of the newcomers and I'm here about the trace from the Tangiers Homicide."

"You know, Grissom would never talk with that much sass." Hodges scolded her.

"_Great, an obnoxious kiss ass, can this guy get any worse?" _Sophie thought.

"Of course I am criminally underpaid, excuse the pun, and my work, while underapreciated, is very important to any case...."

"_It seems I thought way too soon." _Sophie thought. "Hodges, I'd appreciate the results sometime BEFORE MY 60TH BIRTHDAY!"

"OK, OK, jeez." Hodges said putting his hands up in defence. "The stuff that was up Joey's nose came back as Chloroform, a very effective and popular sedative among organized crime types."

"That explains how a 200ibs man ended up in that position in a none bondage kind of way." Sophie replied.

"Funny you should mention that, Grissom once a relationship with a professional dominatrix by the name of Lady Heather....."

"Hodges, just stop, I do NOT want the mental image of Gill having Bondage sex!" Sophie said shuddering for a moment. "Just give me the results so I can show them to Sara and Catherine."

"As you wish, you highness." Hodges said handing her the results, she stormed out and went looking for the DNA lab, she quickly found it and entered it just as Catherine and Sara did.

"What have you got Wendy?" Catherine asked.

"Well, in the biggest surprise of my entire life, the blood belonged to Joey." Wendy replied.

"That IS a big surprise." Sara said sarcastically.

"Here's where it gets interesting, the seamen was from several donors, one female, who's also the owner of the fake fingernail and hair, and three male donors." Wendy said to the surprise of the other three women.

"Did you say three?!" Catherine asked surprised. "That room was built three days ago, apart from Joey and the perp no one's used it."

"I know so I ran it through every database I know off, no hits on the male donors but I pulled up a Tangiers work card for one of the hotel's receptionists." Wendy said showing them the screen revealing a raven haired woman.

"Samantha Drellows, 22 years old, works for the Tangiers as a receptionist." Catherine read of the screen. "No criminal history but this evidence is enough to bring her in for a chat."

"I saw her when we entered the hotel." Sophie remembered once she cooled down from her experience with Hodges. "She looked like she was going to have a panic attack, not in the literal sense of course."

"I noticed that too, I'll get Vega to bring her in." Catherine replied getting her pager out, it wasn't necessary however as Vega appeared at the door.

"I've managed to track down Joey's ex wife; she's living in a residential area here in Vegas." Vega informed them.

"Good timing Vega, while we head down there can you see Brass about a questioning warrant for Samantha Drellows?" Catherine asked.

"Sure thing, I'll meet you guys down there." Vega replied and once Catherine filled him in on the reason for the warrant he took off.

"I'm driving." Sara said before either of the other two women could object, they left the DNA lab and, after Vega stopped to give them the address, they hopped in the van, the drive to the ex wife's house took thirty minutes at the most and the house it's self was pretty fancy looking which, Sophie guessed, Joey helped pay for with his ill gotten money, they walked up to the door and Catherine knocked, a young girl, around 9, answered the door.

"Hey there sweaty, is your mommy home?" Catherine greeted.

"MOM, some ladies are here to see you!" The young girl called, a woman around Catherine's age with long blonde hair came up to them picking up the girl as she did.

"May I help you?" The woman asked.

"Are you Cassandra Mulox? I'm Catherine Willows, this is Sophie Danielson and Sara Sidle, and we're with the Las Vegas crime lab."

Cassandra let out a sigh.

"You're here about my ex aren't you? God, why can't that asshole stay out of my life for five minutes?"

"Been there, done that, believe me." Catherine replied. "Yes, this is about Joey, but this is something I wouldn't want my daughter to hear, much less yours."

Cassandra nodded and sat the girl on the floor.

"Go play in your room honey." Cassandra told her and the young girl took off, Vega soon joined them and, after introducing himself, Cassandra let them in.

"So what's this about?" Catherine got ready to bring the tissues out and motioned for Sophie to take the lead.

"Ms. Mulox, I'm sorry but Joey was found dead earlier this evening."

The woman's reaction surprised everyone, they had expected her to burst out crying but instead she sighed.

"That's one weight of my shoulders."

"Your ex has been found dead and that's your reaction?" Catherine asked.

"You've been through divorce as well, I can tell, we both know that divorce is hell on anyone, especially the kids." Cassandra said sadly. "Truth be told, I never cared for him, my father forced me to marry him because he owed Joey's father, only when Joey's father died did I sum up the courage to divorce that bastard."

"So you where aware of his actions and how dirty a cop he was?" Sara asked.

"Aware? He bragged about it every time he came home, threatened to rape me if I told anyone." Cassandra answered.

"Joey's father, was he in the mob?" Sophie asked.

"He was a solder for a mob boss whose name I never bothered to learn, he wanted Joey to join the police so that the family he worked for had a man on the inside and that bastard was loyal to him until he slipped up." Cassandra replied.

"He testified against his own father?!" Sophie asked shocked.

"No honour among thieves, then again if I was facing the death penalty I'd rat out everyone I worked for in the illegal sense." Cassandra replied.

"Makes sense, one last question, did Joey ever go through with his threats?" Sophie asked.

"If he did his dad would've kill him, literally, rape's the only thing that family frowns upon." Cassandra replied.

"If you think of anything else give us a call." Catherine said handing Cassandra her card.

"Of course I will." Cassandra said with a nod and Sophie, Vega, Catherine and Sara left.

"So where now?" Sophie asked. "By the way, thanks a lot for sticking me with that obnoxious asshole known as Hodges."

"Glad you appreciate it, now all you need to do is your first autopsy." Catherine replied.

"That'll be a free trip to the Caribbean compared to talking with Hodges." Sophie replied and Vega cleared his throat.

"If we can get back on track I'll tell you where we're going, the interrogation room, Samantha was brought in as soon as I left." Vega answered as he entered his car, Catherine hopped in the driver's seat of the van, Sophie rode shotgun and Sara hopped in the back, the drive back to the lab was uneventful and quick, they arrived at the lab and went to the interrogation room where Samantha sat.

"Samantha Drellows. I'm Catherine Willows; this is my partners Sophie Danielson and Sara Sidle."

"I couldn't care less if you where the pope, lady, I know my rights and I know that I don't have to speak to you." Samantha snapped at them.

"Is that right? Because our evidence will change your mind, tell me is it common for a hotel employee to get intimate with a guest, let alone three, in a recently built room none the less?" Vega asked.

"Err, no in fact that can get you fired." Samantha said.

"Don't try to act innocent, DNA evidence places you at the crime scene two days before Joey's death, care to explain that?" Sara said.

"What evidence?" Samantha asked.

"Oh, I don't know, seaman, a fake fingernail like the ones you're wearing right now and a hair that belongs to you." Sophie replied.

All colour drained from Samantha's face.

"OK, OK, I was there." She said with an aggravated sigh. "It happened two days ago, it was late and I was the last one on the day shift to leave, I was packing up to head home when three gorgeous guys came up to me, they said they wanted to use a room that was recently built and didn't want it to go on record, they didn't say why and initially I refused thinking about my job but they can work there magic like no other man I've been with can and the next thing I knew I was screwing all three guys at once in that very room, the fingernail and the hair must've fell of during foreplay." Samantha said. "After that I gave them a master key that the staff use in case of emergencies but when I herd about the murder I froze knowing that my actions had lead to a man's death."

"And you didn't tell us?" Sophie asked.

"What was I meant to say? I screwed three guys and gave them access to the room that a guy was murdered in?" Samantha said.

"Regardless you actions mean that we can charge with accessory to murder, a felony, so your job's the least of your worries." Vega said going to put the cuffs on Samantha but Catherine stopped him.

"We need a description of the men you where with." She said firmly.

"Err, they looked like guys who where in charge of a company, nice suits, expensive watches, the works." Samantha said. "The shortest of the three, and the best in bed in my opinion, was blonde, the other one had black hair and the tallest guy in the group was a redhead, they where all business almost as if screwing me was a business decision." Samantha said and Catherine gave Vega the go ahead and Samantha was arrested and taken to holding.

"Well, she wins my "slut of the year" award." Sophie commented. "The boys would've loved that interview though." Sophie added getting a laugh out of the older CSIS.

"Would've loved to have seen Greg's face when she confessed, that's for sure." Catherine said.

"Oh god, he wouldn't have been able to contain himself." Sara said shaking her head.

"So, what now, the only suspects we have are the guys that Samantha where with." Sophie asked. "And the only thing we have that ties them to the crime scene is the testimony of an employee that seems to ripped right out of a low budget porno."

"You will get the hotel surveillance tapes from the manager, which should confirm Samantha's story." Catherine replied.

"And if he asks for a warrant?"

"It shouldn't be too hard to get one based on the evidence." Catherine replied. "Vega, can you see about a warrant for the tapes, just to be on the safe side."

"I'm on it." Vega replied leaving the interrogation room.

"So where will I meet you guys when I get back?" Sophie asked standing up.

"The break room, after that we'll take you to the video lab so Archie can work his magic." Catherine replied, Sophie left the interrogation room and headed to the garage.

"Hey." Sophie spun around saw Evan, easing up she let out a sigh.

"Don't sneak up on me like that OK?" She asked agitated.

"Sorry, so where are you headed?" Evan asked.

"Tangiers, I've got surveillance tapes to collect." She answered. "What about you?"

"I've got a dirty cop to track down." Evan answered hopping in his van.

"Weren't you with Nick and Warrick on that case?"

"Yeah but they went ahead, they've been trying to track down the dealer of the coke that may of killed Kara." Evan explained.

"Yeah well, just be glad you didn't have to interrogate a woman who admitted to having a four way with my main suspects so they could use the room Joey was killed in." Sophie said shaking her head.

"Are you serious?! Man Greg wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face in that interview." Evan replied with a laugh.

"And that's why he's in the break room bored out of his skull." Sophie said shaking her head. "Gil made the right decision in sticking him on that Hit and Run Case."

"That happens to be connected to my case in a weird way." Evan said telling her what happened in Emily's interrogation.

"Now THAT'S an interrogation I would've loved to be a part off." She said with a grin. "It's almost like something off of Dr. Phil."

"I thought it was of Jerry Springer personally." Evan's pager went off; he looked at it and sighed. "I've got to run, big break in the case."

"Yeah, I should get going myself; those tapes aren't going to collect themselves." Sophie replied hopping in her van. Evan drove off to his destination as did Sophie; she arrived at the Tangiers five minutes later and went up to reception.

"May I help....oh, your one of the CSIS that was here earlier." The receptionist, a young African American woman, recognised her.

"Yes, I need to speak to the manager; it has to do with my case."

"I'm sorry, he's in a meeting right now and can't be disturbed." She answered, Sophie groaned.

"Fine, I'll be waiting right here until he comes out." Sophie said plopping down on one of the sofas in the reception area. She decided to call Catherine to let her know of the situation.

"A meeting, you're waiting for him to come out of a meeting?" Catherine asked when she explained it.

"Can't really do much else as I don't know where they keep the security videos." She answered.

"Ask the receptionist when the meeting ends then, at least then you'll have an idea of how long you'll be waiting, by the way, Vega's on his way down with the warrant in case he doesn't cooperate." Catherine answered

"Thanks." She answered before hanging up; she went back up to reception.

"You're an inpatient one aren't you?"

"Comes with the territory, can you at least tell me how long he'll be?"

The receptionist thought for a moment before answering.

"He should be out in a few minutes; I'll let him know that you want to speak to him when he gets out."

"Thanks, I appreciate it." Sophie said sitting back down, Vega arrived a few minutes later with the warrant in hand.

"Any luck with the tapes, kiddo?" Vega asked.

"I thought I told you my name's Sophie?" She replied.

"It's nothing personal, just my pet name for any rookie regardless of their position."

"In that case, no, the manager's in a meeting and until he comes out I won't know where to look for the security videos." Sophie replied.

"That'll definitely help." Vega added, just then the sounds of footsteps filled the area and several men stepped out of a nearby room the receptionist motioned the last man to come out over and pointed to Sophie and Vega telling him they wanted to see him. He walked over to them.

"You wanted to see me?" The manager asks.

"We need the security videos." Sophie said showing her badge.

"You'll also need a warrant." The manager said.

"Well it's a good thing that I thought ahead." Vega said showing him the warrant. He sighed.

"What day do you want the videos from and what time?"

"Two days ago, towards the end of Samantha Drellows' shift." Sophie answered.

"I'll have security bring them down for you." The manager said walking off, Sophie leaned back sighing.

"Great, now I have to wait even longer." Sophie groaned.

"You'll hate a missing person's case then." Vega replied. Before Sophie could answer back a redheaded, smart dressed man entered the hotel and caught her attention.

"Hey, doesn't he match the description Sam gave us?" Sophie asked pointing to him, Vega spotted him.

"As a matter of fact yes, he does."

The man spotted them and span on his heels sprinting towards the door.

"You wait for the videos, this guy's mine." Sophie said sprinting after the man before Vega could protest, the man tried to get through the doors before Sophie took him down and motioned to Vega to get the cuffs.

"You're stronger than you look." Vega commented slapping the cuffs on.

"I didn't tell you I'm a black belt in Judo, did i?" Sophie asked as Vega helped her get the man to his feet.

"What the hell is this about?!" The man asked.

"Why don't you tell us? A certain receptionist described a man matching your description." Vega told him.

"Samantha? That little slut, I told them we should've....." The man trailed off.

"Should've what? Killed her instead?" Sophie asked.

"I don't need this, I know my rights."

"OK here's your videos.....am I interrupting something?" The manager asked passing them the videos, Sophie let go of the man knowing that Vega had him under control and took the videos.

"Thank your cooperation; now we have a scumbag to interrogate and tapes to view." Sophie told the manager before leaving the hotel with Vega dragging the man to his car.


	6. The plot thickens

Evan leaned back in his chair in the break room as he waited, five minutes ago they had just finished telling Greg how the hit and run case was connected to this case and he had to say that the look on Greg's face was priceless, Nick and Warrick where out helping Internal Affairs track down Scott Michaels but they had told him to wait at the station due to his rookie status, Gil entered the room with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Hi Evan, have you seen Greg?" Gil asked catching the young man's attention.

"No, I haven't, why you have another case for him?" Evan asked and Gil smiled.

"Yes, I do, a Liquor Store Robbery in Henderson to be precise." Gil answered.

"I'll let him know when I see him next." Evan said.

"Let me know of what?" Greg asked poking his head in.

"I've got another case for you Greg, Liquor Store Robbery." Gil said handing him the paper.

"Oh thank god! You have no idea how much I was praying for another assignment!" Greg said almost getting into the "I'm not worthy pose" but Gil stopped him.

"First, whilst I appreciate the thanks there's no need to go overboard, second, I'll be accompanying you on the case." Gil told him, "So let's go."

"Right behind you boss." Greg said following the supervisor out of the room, Evan smiled imagining Greg being relentless in his thanking of Gil on the way to the crime scene, his train of thought was interrupted by a page.

"Trace found on Kara's clothing?" Evan wondered out loud, he remembered Warrick mentioning he had dropped the cloths of at the trace lab in order to see if the perp had left any trace, after sending Warrick a page to let him and Nick know of the development in the case and Evan went of in search of the lab, he found it a few minutes later seeing Wendy argue with Hodges.

"_She wasn't kidding when she said she hated him._ Evan thought before knocking at the door,

"May I help you?" Hodges asked as Wendy left.

"Yeah, I'm Evan and I'm one of the new CSIS that started tonight." Evan greeted.

"Ah, then you must be here about the trace on your victim's cloths." Hodges replied. "I found a peculiar stain on Kara's top, I've run it already and you'd never guess what it is."

"Try me." Evan replied.

"It came back as Alcohol, cheap stuff, the kind that you would find at any Liquor Store." Hodges answered and Evan got a thought.

"Thanks Hodges, I've got a coroner to visit." Evan answered leaving the trace lab, after five minutes he was back at the morgue.

"Evan? What brings you back here?" Al looked up surprised.

"Did Kara have any alcohol in her bloodstream?" Evan asked.

"No she didn't, why?" Evan explained about the alcohol found on Kara's top and Al thought for a moment.

"I may have an explanation for that." Al said leading Evan over to the containers; he pulled out Kara's corpse and pointed to a previously unnoticed wound on her forehead.

"I noticed this wound as I was showing her body to her parents when they came by to identify the body, the size and shape of wound is consistent with her having a bear bottle broken over her head," Al explained.

"It must've been a weapon of choice, usually when someone breaks a bottle over a person's head the bottle's empty." Evan answered and Al nodded.

"It was also most likely the perpetrator's response to Kara defending herself." Evan reasoned remembering the defensive wounds, Evan's cellphone rang and he looked.

"Got to go, Nick and Warrick need me out there." Evan told Al and he nodded.

"Well, I won't keep you any longer." Al said putting Kara's corpse back in the container and closing the door. Evan left the autopsy and went to the garage bumping into Sophie on the way, they had a brief conversation and Evan got a page reminding him that he was needed in Henderson, hopping in his van and mentally kicking himself for the lame "big break in case" excuse he drove off and eventually located Nick and Warrick who were waiting near Kara's apartment.

"There you are what took you so long?" Warrick asked as Evan got out the car, Evan told them about the wound and the alcohol on Kara's top.

"So now we have something else to find when we get Ice Cold's address." Nick said.

"So what will we do in the meantime?" Evan asked.

"IA lost track of Michaels whilst we were waiting for you, it wasn't you fault as Michaels had caught on that he was being tailed and sped off, we're waiting for IA to track him down again." Nick explained, just then Nick got a call and he answered it.

"Hello, what did you say? The officer's dead?!" Nick asked whoever was on the other end of the phone shocked at this turn of events. "We'll be right there, is Dave at the scene yet? OK thanks." Nick hung up.

"We have a situation, the cop that we posted at Emily's apartment has been killed and Emily's been attacked, she is on her way to the hospital now." Nick said hopping in his van, Warrick followed and Evan hopped in his own van and followed them back to Emily's apartment, as they pulled up they saw Emily being loaded into an ambulance and they rushed up to Emily's apartment seeing Dave taking the liver temp of the dead cop.

"Hi guys, liver temp says that this guy has been dead for at least an hour but I think you'd be more interested by what happened in the apartment." Dave said.

"Thanks Dave, you have the go ahead to move the body to the morgue." Nick told him, Dave wasted no time in calling the coroner team over and they loaded the body onto the stretcher, Evan, Nick and Warrick entered the apartment, it was a mess, well OK it was a mess before but this was far worse,, all the evidence pointed towards signs of a struggle,

"We'd better get started." Warrick said as the three CSIS put there gloves on, Evan observed them collecting evidence, he looked inside Emily's bedroom and noticed that the bed sheets where a mess as well, even more so than the rest of the apartment, Evan suddenly got a bad feeling in his stomach, not the illness kind though.

"Guys, how likely is it that Emily was raped by whoever did this?" Evan asked motioning them over, they looked and got the same feeling.

"Let's hope not, Evan hit the lights, I and Warrick will check the bed." Evan did as he was told and Nick and Warrick turned on their UV lights, sure enough there was seaman on the bed, Evan turned on the lights.

"Please tell me that seaman's from a night with her boyfriend." Evan said as Nick swabbed the seamen.

"I'm hoping the same thing, her boyfriend's DNA should be on file due to his involvement in the Hit And Run case and we'll have the hospital run a rape kit." Nick said.

"So in other words, we could easily confirm on deny the possibility of the sex being consensual." Evan said and Nick nodded.

"I'm beginning to think that this and Kara's homicide is related, it's possible that Scott heard that Emily was taken into custody and told Ice Cold in case she testified." Warrick reasoned.

"Of course we'll need evidence placing Ice Cold at the scene, here's hoping this is enough." Nick replied as they moved back into the front room, they collected the various signs of a struggle and Evan noticed blood on the floor.

"We've got blood over here." Evan said and Warrick swabbed it, a rather shaken Jim Brass appeared at the door.

"Hey guys, Emily's at the hospital and she's willing to talk." Jim said.

"Thanks Jim, you OK?"

"I knew the cop that was posted here, young, smart, promising career, all around good kid; I knew that I had placed Emily in good hands when I asked him to stand guard at her door." Jim answered. "You remember Christine Nyoko right?"

"Isn't that Kara's Asian friend? What about her?" Evan asked.

"She was the one who discovered the victims; you might want to take her statement before going to the hospital." Jim answered.

"Sure, I'll interview her, Evan you are going down to the hospital, wait for us there before speaking to Emily, Warrick; you're in charge of getting the evidence to the lab." Nick instructed the two CSIS and bagged the evidence before giving it to Warrick. Nick and the two CSIS left the apartment and quickly located Christine who looked quite shaken up by the recent turn of events.

"Christine? I'm Nick Stokes, Las Vegas crime lab, as you already know; can I speak to you for a minute?"

"Sure." Christine answered.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"I was visiting Emily to check up on her after what happened to Kara earlier, as I climbed the stairs I saw the dead police officer and I knocked on a neighbour's door to get him to call the cops as I don't own a cellphone, I entered the apartment to see if Emily was OK and I saw her lying face up, her jeans and panties where around her ankles and she was outcold, I told the neighbour to call for an ambulance as well and I think you know the rest." Christine answered.

"I take it you know that we had posted a police officer there for her protection?"

"Yeah, Emily told me about it over the phone about an hour ago."

"OK, I'm going to need your DNA and fingerprints." Nick told the Asian woman.

"Because it's protocol, I overheard your colleague saying that to the landlord earlier." Christine answered allowing Nick to take her DNA and fingerprints. She walked off and Nick gave Warrick the samples to take back to the crime lab and he and Warrick hopped in the van and drove back to the lab, the drive back was pretty long and they got there an hour later. There first stop was the DNA lab.

"Hey guys." Wendy greeted.

"Hey Wendy, we have some DNA evidence for you." Warrick said handing the seamen and the blood over as well as the DNA sample from Christine.

"Thanks."

"Can you compare the seamen against Max Edwards?" Warrick said referring to Emily's boyfriend.

"Sure." She answered and she compared the samples, they seemed to confirm the CSI'S fears as the samples didn't match.

"Run the blood and seamen through CODIS; call us when you're done." Warrick said as he and Nick left, their pagers went off informing them that the autopsy was complete and they went to the Autopsy room.

"Hey doc, what have you got for us?"

"The cause of death mostly but there's nothing else that I can tell you that you didn't already know about." Al answered. "Cause of Death was a gunshot wound to the head, the bullet lodged it's self in the victim's brain and about a minute later he was dead. The bullet has been recovered and has been sent to ballistics." Al said.

"Is that everything?" Warrick asked.

"The gun shot was at point blank range as the stippling and high concentration of GSR will tell you." Al said pointing to the wound.

"Either the perp caught the cop by surprise or we're dealing with a pro." Warrick stated.

"That's everything; I've already sent this young man's DNA and fingerprints to the respective labs with instructions to contact you if they get a hit though he's most likely already in the system due to the fact that he was a cop." Al said and the two CSIS left.

"So where now?" Warrick asked.

"The hospital, Evan's probably getting bored waiting for us there." Nick answered, the two CSIS went to their van and started it, they drove to the hospital where Emily was staying which was staying and they met Evan by the private room that she was in.

"Hey, any luck with the DNA evidence?" Evan asked.

"Yeah, the bad kind, the seaman didn't belong to her boyfriend." Evan sighed when Warrick told him that.

"Between you and me, I'm hoping that this doesn't turn into a rape case." Evan informed the older CSIS.

"I'm with you man, but for now we'd better interview Emily." Nick answered as they opened the door. Emily lay on her back staring at ceiling and looked up when she heard the door open.

"Finally, some company." Emily said sitting up.

"Emily, I understand this must be hard for you but can you tell us what happened?" Warrick asked.

"I was sitting on my bed when I heard a gunshot outside, I was going to check to see what was going on but Ice Cold burst in with two of his cronies, one of them was carrying a video camera, a cheap one." Emily remembered. "Ice Cold said that he was going to do the same thing he did to Kara to me and I attacked knowing what he meant." The CSIS noticed that tears where starting to come out of her eyes. "However one of his goons pistol whipped me and Ice Cold had them drag me to my bed, put me on it and hold me down.....I don't think I need to tell what happened next." She said before bursting into tears.

"He raped you?" Warrick asked and she nodded. "Did the pistol whip cause any bleeding?" She nodded and raised her hair up to show a small amount of stitches in her forehead.

"That wasn't much blood that you lost so that couldn't have knocked you out." Nick stated.

"Your right." She said in between tears. "Once he was done he injected something into my arm, I think it may have been cocaine, about five minutes later I was out cold and they left me for dead."

"But they didn't count on Christine being a good friend in checking up on you." Evan said before realisation hit him. "Did the goon with the camera leave it on?"

"I didn't see it but Ice Cold told the goon to keep it rolling, something about setting an example." Emily answered.

"We're going to have the doctors run a rape kit, is that OK with you?" Warrick asked and she nodded, they left the room and Nick went off to find a doctor. Warrick punched the wall out of anger.

"Man, I can't wait to get my hands on that scumbag." Warrick said angrily.

"You and me both, we didn't recover a camera at Emily's apartment so they must've taken it with them." Evan remembered.

"You're right, but for now we need to find out where the guy lives and get a search warrant, which should be easy enough." Warrick answered as Nick approached with a nurse.

"They have the rape kit and the instructions, for now we're heading back to the lab so we can wait for the results." Nick told them once the nurse entered the room.

"Good, I'll get Brass to put out an APB on Ice Cold." Warrick said before getting a page, he looked at it and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Michaels has turned himself in to IA." Warrick said.

"Say what?" Evan asked surprised.

"They are interviewing him right now; I think it'll be a good idea to get there quickly." Warrick added and the three CSIS left the hospital.


	7. Two down, one to go

Sophie and Catherine where on their way to Archie so he could view the security tapes that the manager had retrieved for Sophie, the man that Sophie and Vega arrested at the Tangiers, who eventually identified himself as Rex Cannon, was currently in holding until they where ready to interview him, but first they needed to make sure that they had the right man and that was when the security tapes would come in.

Catherine and Sara where initially surprised, not to mention impressed, that Sophie had assisted in Rex's arrest, of course Catherine was quick to point out that they couldn't hold him unless his DNA matched one of the male DNA samples found on the bed which Sara was taking to DNA to get a match, they eventually stopped at the appropriate lab where the Asian lab tech Archie Kao sat.

"Hi Archie, we have some videos for you." Catherine said and the lab tech looked up.

"I'm always happy to be off service." Archie replied taking the videos. "What are they and what are they off?"

"In order, security tapes from the Tangiers and they may contain evidence that can help us keep a suspect in custody." Sophie replied.

"Ah I see, better not waste any time then." Archie said popping in the tape, the tape showed a female figure who looked like she was about to finish her shift, the time on the camera showed 11:45PM.

"That's Samantha Drellows." Catherine recognised her.

"Isn't she going down for accessory to murder?" Archie asked confused.

"Yeah, but we need video evidence of the guys she was with." Sophie replied knowing what Archie was confused about. "And we suspect that one of them is Rex Cannon."

"I see what you mean." Archie replied, at 11:50 pm three male figures in suits entered the building.

"Zoom in on the guy in the back." Catherine instructed, Archie did as he was told though the image wasn't clear.

"Can you clear up the image?" Sophie asked and Archie cleared up the image, when the image was clear enough to see the man's face, the two women grinned, it was Rex Cannon.

"Well, seems my hunch was right." Sophie said.

"Do you want me to print the picture off?" Archie asked.

"Go for it!" Catherine replied.

Archie printed off the picture and handed it to Catherine.

"Is that everything?"

"Not quite, when we apprehend the other two guys we'll be back to make sure we have the right guys."

"Just curious but what's their connection to the crime?" Archie asked.

"They had a four way with Samantha in the room where Joey was killed, she gave them access to the room at any given time without it going on record in exchange and they sedated Joey with Chloroform but torturing him to death. Well okay we haven't confirmed the last two parts but they seem likely." Sophie replied.

The two women left Archie to his work and were on there way to interrogation paging Vega to let him know that they wanted to interview Rex, Sara came up to them on the way over.

"You guys are going to love this, Rex's DNA Sample matches one of the male seaman stains."

"And we've confirmed that Rex was one of the guys that Samantha slept with." Sophie told her.

"Nice, I take it you are going to have a chat with Rex?" Sara asked.

"You know it." Catherine asked and the three women made there way to interrogation where Rex sat alongside the Public defence attorney that had been assigned to him.

"Rex, you've been a bad boy haven't you?" Vega asked.

"You don't have to answer that." The attorney, a short balding man in his late forties wearing a nice pair of glasses, informed Rex.

"You're right he doesn't, that was a hypothetical question." Vega said. "Tell me, why did you turn around and flee when you saw us at the hotel?"

Rex turned to his attorney.

"You'll have to answer that one."

Rex sighed.

"I ran because you both look like cops, okay? I have a younger brother who's serving a life sentence and he told me what to look out for when on the lookout for cops." Rex replied.

"Is that so? You know, that still doesn't answer the question of why you ran." Sophie replied.

"I panicked....."

"Yeah, is the reason you panicked because you had a hand in the murder of an ex cop?" Vega interrupted him.

"You can't prove that!" Rex pointed out.

"We CAN prove that you where at the crime scene for two days prior to Joey's homicide." Catherine replied. "Why don't I take it from the top? You and your friends where hired by a mob boss to execute a dirty cop because he turned state evidence, you where most likely planning the hit over two days before you actually did it."

"And how exactly can you prove that my client had a hand in that?!" The attorney asked.

"You know what? How about we start with this?" Sophie said passing the security cam footage of Rex at the hotel.

"That's circumstantial evidence at best." The attorney said dismissively.

"Oh? This was around the time that Samantha Drellows said that Rex and two other men approached her for use of that room, off the record of course." Catherine said.

"Drellows is facing a twenty year sentence; she must've said that to cover up for herself." The attorney said.

"Our next piece of evidence says otherwise." Sara said showing them the seaman swab, "This seaman matches the DNA sample you gave us, what do you say to that?"

"What do I say? Fine I was there!" Rex said as the attorney pleaded with him to be quiet. "I was the one that broke that SOB'S ribs and jaw, used a baseball bat to do it to boot, but that's it, the other guys did the rest."

"Well in that case why don't you be a sport and tell us who the other guys are?" Vega asked.

"And if I refuse?"

Vega chuckled.

"You know what the funny thing is Rex? With that confession you have brought yourself 25 to life, however I'm willing to bet that those "buddies" of yours are well on there way to Mexico right now planning to let you take the blame for Joey's murder, do you know what that will mean for you? It will mean that you will take the blame for the murder and you will get the death sentence for it."

All colour drained from Rex's face.

"Since you put it that way, the other two guys where Mark Verona, the black haired guy, and Marcus Mendoza, the blonde guy. And by the way, that was a business deal; I never met those guys before we were hired." Rex said.

"What about the guy who hired you?" Sophie asked.

"Never met him, Mark was the one that contacted us so he is you're best bet for finding out who ordered the hit and he's a tough one to crack, just a fair warning." Rex replied.

"You have an address for them?"

"Nope, we met outside the hotel, screwed the slutty receptionist, carried out the deed and went on our separate ways." Rex replied.

"One last question before Vega takes you to booking, why did you go back to the hotel?"

"To steal any evidence left behind by you ladies, Mark contacted me to do it......that son of a bitch!!!!!"

Rex punched the table angrily.

"He set me up, he knew the cops where going to be there!" Rex yelled as Vega placed him in handcuffs, Sara and Sophie retrieved the evidence as they watched Rex scream every curse word in the English language at the top of lungs as he was dragged away by Vega.

"Wow, and here I thought I was a potty mouth." Sophie quipped.

"In any case I'll ask Vega to get Brass to put out an APB on Rex's accomplishes." Catherine said leaving the interrogation room, she returned a few minutes later with a smile on her face.

"You'd never guess who was in the Reception area when I walked by."

"Hmmm, let me guess, though Grissom hates that word, one of Rex's buddies?" Sophie asked standing up.

"Got it in one, it was Marcus to be pacific. Rex ratted him out." Sophie blinked in confusion.

"He was barely arrested five minutes ago and he's ALREADY ratting out his buddies?!"

"Not quite, Rex sent a few VERY choice words in Marcus's direction as he was taken to booking and it didn't take us long to figure it out, nor did it take us long to arrest him for that matter." Catherine answered. "We had to get a warrant for his DNA but that was easy enough."

"So since we've got the guy in custody, I take it we'll have the same routine that we had with Rex as?"

"That's right, same routine as with Rex." Catherine confirmed Sophie's suspicions as she lead Sara and Sophie back to Archie's lab.

"Back again I see." Archie greeted the women.

"You know it, we need to confirm that the second suspect that we have in custody was at the hotel with Rex." Catherine informed him.

"Well then, it's a good thing I left the tape in." Archie answered; before he could play the tape Vega entered the room.

"Guess what was among Marcus's personal affects." Vega said with a grin.

"Please tell me it's the murder weapon!" Sophie asked hopeful but Vega shook his head.

"Kid, it's rarely that easy in this line of work, but what was in his personal affects works just as well." Vega answered.

"Well the only other thing I can think of is the gun used to shoot out the lights and Joey's limbs." Sophie stated before realisation hit her. "Don't tell me he was stupid enough to bring a gun that was used to torture someone to death with him to the station."

"What DO you want me to tell you?" Vega replied.

"I'll take that as a yes then." Sophie replied.

"You got it, the guns waiting for you to test fire it in Ballistics; in the meantime I think it's safe to assume you three are here to confirm that Marcus was at the hotel?" Vega assumed.

"That's right. Speaking of which Archie can you start the video?" Catherine replied before turning to Archie who obliged and played it until the three men entered the hotel where he pauses it.

"You see you're guy yet?" Archie asked as the three women studied the screen.

"There, zoom in on the guy checking his watch." Catherine told him and he did so, thankfully this shot was a lot clearer than the one that was taken of Rex and Catherine recognised him immediately.

"That's him alright." Catherine said with a grin, just then Sophie got a page.

"DNA results are in." Sophie said. "Marcus was definitely one of the three guys to sleep with Drellows."

"Now we just have to confirm that the gun was the one used at the crime scene." Catherine said leading Vega, Sophie and Sara to Ballistics, when they arrived at the lab they saw that Bobby Dawson, the resident gun guy, was sat at a desk in the DNA lab doing some paperwork.

"Hi Bobby, we're ready to test fire the gun." Catherine said making the lab tech jump.

"Do me a favour and knock next time, unless you like watching a colleague having a heart attack." Bobby said with a grin. "Gun's on that desk over there, I'm busy with this paperwork so you don't mind test firing it yourself do you?"

"Sure, don't want to keep you from your duties after all." Sara replied picking up the gun, a 9ml handgun equipped with a homemade suppressor, they went to the firing range and Sara pointed the gun at the target, Vega and the three women put the earplugs on despite the fact that the gun had a suppressor. Sara fired a bullet into the target which they quickly retrieved.

"Bobby, where did you put the bullets from the crime scene and Joey's body?" Catherine asked.

"They are near the microscope." Bobby replied and Catherine sat down in front of it, she put the test fired bullet into one side and one of the bullets used to shoot out the lights in the other, after rotating both bullets for a few minutes she grinned.

"So far, so good, the gun was definitely used to shoot out the lights." Catherine commented taking the lights bullet out and putting one of the bullets from Joey's body in its place, a few minutes of rotating later and she grinned. "Two for two, Marcus was definitely part of the torture process."

"In that case we'd better have a word with him." Sophie said before a young, panicky officer ran up to the room.

"We have a suicide in the holding cells; I think you guys know who it is." The officer said breathlessly.

"Please tell me it's not Marcus." Sophie said as the three women and Vega went over to the holding cell, sure enough there Marcus hung limp, it was too late to save him.

"Great, my first case and one of my suspects commits suicide." Sophie sighed.

"And what's worse is, we have no idea where Mark is." Catherine sighed as she was hoping that Marcus would know where to find Mark. "Vega, have Brass put out an APB on Mark Verona ASAP, we don't want to lose our only other suspect." Vega obliged and ran off to find Brass, Sophie watched as Dave cut Marcus's body down and put him on the stretcher to be moved to the morgue knowing that the sight of a man who had taken his own life in custody was one that would haunt her for the rest of her career.


	8. Justice

Evan looked at the results of the rape kit and then back at Wendy, in his mind he was hoping that the results where wrong but he knew that DNA evidence didn't lie, the rape kit had confirmed that Emily had been raped twice, she was anally raped the first time and she was raped with a metal object the second time, what surprised him was that the doctor had mentioned that she was in good spirits despite what had happened.

"_She's one tough girl, I'll give her that much."_ Evan thought leaning back on his chair. _"If that was any other girl they would've been crying a river of tears, granted she was when she told us about it at the hospital but any other girl would still be crying."_

"Evan?" Wendy said catching the young CSI'S attention. "The results on the blood and seaman are in."

Evan stood up and walked over to the screen.

"So, any luck?"

"The blood sample pulled up Emily's juvie record again confirming what she told you at the hospital." Wendy told him. "The seaman pulled up this however." She told him showing him the screen.

"Terrance Evers alias "Ice Cold", 32 years old, arrested for rape and possession three years ago and he's currently on parole." Nick said making the young CSI and the lab tech jump.

"Dude, don't sneak up on me like that." Evan said turning to his colleague.

"Sorry man didn't mean to scare you." Nick said. "He definitely matches Emily's description of him though, 6ft 1, African American and he looks like a mean SOB to boot." Nick commented. "IA'S ready to interview Michaels and they've invited us to watch it, if you're interested."

"Does a dog poop in the woods?" Evan replied and Nick took that as confirmation and led him to the interrogation room and watched the IA officer that Warrick and Evan talked to interview Michaels.

"Scott Michaels, graduated top of your class from the police academy, an impressive achievement, shame your activities don't live up to it." The IA officer started. "Up until now we couldn't find any hard evidence of your corruption but you left that print at the scene of Kara Stevenson's murder didn't you."

"Look, I didn't intend to be a dirty cop from day one, but a few months after graduation my sister fell ill, my parents couldn't pay for the hospital bills and I had trouble paying the rent of my apartment let alone paying for the hospital bills." Michaels admitted.

"Really, so a Good Samaritan who just happened to be a drug dealer and convicted rapist helped pay for it?"

"I didn't know he was a criminal at the time, if I had I would've sold my apartment instead to help pay but after my sister recovered he told me that I owed him, I just thought he meant that I had to pay back the hospital bills not steal evidence."

"So why did you do it? Look Scott I can tell that you meant well so I'll have the DA recommend forced retirement if you testify."

"My dad operated an illegal gambling operation when he was living in California and continued it when he moved here to Vegas; he stopped when I graduated knowing that even after he stopped that info could ruin my career."

"So he used that info to blackmail you, what about the dead cop and the rape of that 16 year old girl, you have anything to do with that?"

"Hell no, I despise rape and any rapists and I knew the officer that you guys had posted at the front door he was my friend, we graduated from the same class, I told Ice Cold to go find some other young cop because I was done playing clean up crew for him, that led me to turning myself in rather than risk Ice Cold coming after me."

"We need an address so that Emily, Kara and that officer can get justice for what happened to them."

"He lives in a small, dingy apartment in Henderson, its 15 minutes away from Kara's apartment and 20 minutes away from Emily's apartment. I'll even tell you what apartment number it is."

"I'm listening."

"Number 21, listen he's started a prostitution ring, that's why he went after Kara, she had found out about it somehow and she was going to go to the cops, stop him before he goes too far."

"It's our duty. Be sure to turn in your badge at Brass's office." Michaels left the interrogation room and Evan turned to Nick.

"How much of that do you think is the truth?" Evan asked.

"He seemed pretty sincere so I'd say all off it." Nick replied as Brass, who had also been watching the interview, walked up.

"Just give the word and the warrant's yours." Brass said plainly.

"Go get the warrant Brass, meet us in the break room when you get it." Nick said simply as Warrick joined them.

"Your wish is my command." Brass replied before going to his office, a few minutes later Brass met them in the break room with the warrant.

"I'm ready when you guys are." Brass informed them as they left the interrogation area and started walking towards the garage. "As we don't know how many thugs Ice Cold has employed I'm bringing some extra men just in case." Brass said as they entered the garage.

"Let's do it." Warrick said simply and they went to there respective cars and drove back to Henderson, it didn't take them long to find the apartment neither did it take them long to locate Ice Cold who was flirting with a scantly clad woman.

"Are you Terrence Evers, otherwise known as Ice Cold?" Brass asked.

"Who wants to know?" Ice Cold said looking up briefly.

"Las Vegas Police Department, we have a warrant to search your apartment." Brass told him, Ice Cold turned around and saw the officers and the CSIS as well as Brass, shoving the woman to the ground he ran from the cops.

"I'm on him." Evan announced sprinting after Ice Cold, Ice Cold sprinted down the stairs and attempted to jump over a fence, however Evan pulled him down and pinned him down.

"You've got a lot to answer for Ice Cold." Evan said flatly as Brass rushed over and cuffed Ice Cold.

"You do know how the media will twist this; they'll make it look like racial profiling." Ice Cold said as he was pulled up.

"It's not profiling if we have the evidence to back up this arrest." Brass told him as he dragged him to the car. "Warrick and Nick are waiting for you kid, nice take down by the way."

Evan grinned and rushed up the stairs and found his colleagues scouring the room for evidence. "Find anything whilst I was gone?" Evan asked catching there attention.

"A needle half way full of cocaine which, hopefully, is the murder weapon, a video tape entitled "Emily and me, featuring one cop" which if the title is any indication is the video that Emily mentioned and a gun which has blood and Seaman on it." Nick told him as he watched them gather evidence.

"How's the girl he shoved?" Evan asked.

"She's shaken up but otherwise she's fine." Nick replied.

"I think we've found everything, let's head back to the lab." Warrick said bagging a lifted fingerprint.

"We're right behind you." Nick said as Evan followed him; however Evan spotted a broken bottle bear on the nearby shelf.

"Hold on guys that might be the bottle that was broken over Kara's head." Evan said catching there attention.

"Good eye, I'll go ahead and bag it." Warrick said bagging the bottle after that they left the apartment and went down the stairs, they entered the van and Evan spotted a news crew as he hopped in the back, he couldn't make out exactly what they said but it had to do with the arrest though he doubted that it had to do with anything other than calling the police racist based on the fact that the entire crew was African American, they drove away and about twenty minutes later they where back at the lab, Nick dropped the video off at the video lab, Evan dropped of the blood and seaman at the DNA lab Warrick dropped the fingerprint of at the fingerprints lab and the gun of at Ballistics, they went to the autopsy room next.

"Hi there doc, not to busy are you?" Warrick greeted the coroner.

"No, what do you have." Al asked.

"Can you compare this bottle to the wound on Kara's head?" Warrick asked showing him the bottle.

"Sure, you got here just in time as I was about to send her body to the funeral home." Al said opening the container with Kara's corpse inside it. Al compared the bottle to the wound confirming Evan's suspicions.

"This was definitely used to attack Kara." Al said.

"Thanks Al, you can go ahead and send it to the funeral home." Nick told him as they left the autopsy room and went into the break room to await the results on the other pieces of evidence.

"It's been one heck of a first day, hasn't it?" Evan asked sitting down.

"That's an understatement." Warrick said understanding what he meant. "Don't you worry though as not all cases will be like this one."

"That's a relief; I just hope that we can get a conviction out of all this evidence."

"Best case scenario will be that we can charge him with the two murders and the rape practically booking him a place on Death Row, even if we can only convict him on one charge at least he'll pay for his crimes." Nick reassured him, just then he got a page and he checked it. "DNA results are in, the blood and seaman belongs to Emily."

"That's consistent with her being pistol whipped and raped with that gun." Warrick said. "I think I'd better get the cocaine to Narcotics to test it's purity." Warrick said leaving the room.

"What will do in the meantime?" Evan asked.

"Go to Ballistics and test fire the gun and compare the bullet from the gun to the bullet from the officer's head." Nick told him, they left the break room and walked down the hall eventually arriving at the Ballistics lab.

"Hi guys, I'm ready to test fire the bullet when you are." Bobby Dawson greeted.

"Go for it, we'll need this evidence if we are going to get a conviction for both the rape and the murder of the cop." Nick said grabbing the gun and taking it to the firing range, he fired a bullet, retrieved it and put it under the microscope, Bobby passed him the bullet from the officer and he compared the two, after several rotations he looked up with a grin on his face.

"Striations match, at this point getting a conviction for Kara's murder will be the icing on the cake." Nick said with a grin.

"You'd think he would've gotten rid of the gun." Evan commented.

"True but I think he was preoccupied with his lady friends." Nick replied as Warrick entered the room.

"We have our murderer; the cocaine's purity was an exact match to the coke in Kara's bloodstream." Warrick said with a grin.

"Sweet, we can now convict him for all three crimes." Nick said telling him about the ballistics match.

"Nice, also I stopped by the video lab and watched the tape, it's half snuff film half child pornography." Warrick said with a hint of disgust in his voice.

"I thought Emily was 16?" Evan asked confused.

"She is but it counts as child porno due to the fact that she's under the age of 18." Warrick told him as he led them to the interrogation room where Ice Cold sat next to a female public defence attorney.

"I certainly hope for your sakes that you have the evidence to support the accusations towards my client." The attorney, a woman in her fifties with short grey hair and blue eyes said as they entered the room.

"We have the evidence, believe us. Why don't we start from the top Ice Cold? There blood and seaman from the gun where a match to Emily's DNA meaning he had his goon pistol whip her and he raped her with it." Nick said flatly.

"Okay, you have the evidence for the first conviction but....."

"We're not finished; Ballistics matched the bullet from the officer's body to the same gun used to rape Emily." Brass said.

"And that's not all, Narcotics matched the cocaine found in your apartment to the cocaine that killed Kara, we've got you for rape and double homicide Terry, you're getting the death penalty for this." Warrick said.

"Okay, you got me; the bitch was going to tell the police about my prostitution ring so I shut her up...."

"SHE WAS 17 YEARS OLD ICE COLD! THAT'S NO EXCUSE!" Evan, who had up to this point been laid back, yelled at Ice Cold. "But you didn't stop there did you? You had to go and rape Emily and kill the cop but why?"

"Michaels told me that the junkie bitch had been taken in and had testified against me, I had intended to kill her but I guess the coke wasn't pure enough. That cop? He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." Ice Cold said.

"Err, is the DA willing to make a deal?" The attorney finally said.

"I doubt it." Brass said as the attorney left, he turned to the officer. "Get this scumbag out of my sight." Brass said as Ice Cold was placed in cuffs and lead away.

"God, it felt good to yell at that guy." Evan said running a hand through his hair.

"I bet it did, we just have one last thing to do to make your first day complete." Nick said with a serious voice.

"What's that?" Evan asked,

"Go down to a local bar and break the ice." Nick said. "Our shift just ended."

"Mind if I join you guys? My shift's over to." Brass asked.

"Sure but only if you're the designated driver!" Evan said in response. Brass sighed.

"You have a deal." Brass said and the four men left the interrogation room.


	9. A Father's love

Sophie sat in the break room watching the TV, the media was quick to pick up on Marcus's suicide and it was already being blown way out of proportion, one news channel went as far as to say that Marcus killed himself after a rather harsh interrogation when in reality the interrogation hadn't even started yet.

Turning of the TV the young CSI sat up in her chair and rested her hand on her chin, the ABP was still out for Mark and they had gotten a search warrant for Mark's home due to the fact that it was pretty obvious that he was the one that had finished the job, main problem was finding out his true address, the one listed at the DMV was a fake one as it had turned out to be a small bar and Mark wasn't even a regular there.

"_Of course, it doesn't help that a good number of police officers are busy helping Evan, Nick and Warrick track down that dealer." _ Sophie thought palming her hair behind her ear, she had overheard Nick and Evan talking about the guy and he sounded like a scumbag from what she had heard.

Sophie's thoughts were interrupted by Catherine entering the room with two cups of coffee in hand.

"Hey, you wanted two sugars in your coffee right?" Catherine asked.

"That's right." Sophie confirmed as she gladly took the coffee, taking a sip she sat it down. "Any luck tracking down Mark?"

"None so far but the officers that aren't with Brass in Henderson are on it; we take a dead cop seriously around here even one as dirty as Joey." Catherine informed her as she sat down,

"I can imagine." Sophie commented taking another sip. "You've seen the news reports on Marcus's suicide?"

"I did, god I hate the media sometimes." Catherine muttered. "I've had Marcus's medical records pulled to see if he had any past depression issues."

"Was there any?"

"None, in fact his last hospital stay was for a Motorbike accident back in 99." Catherine said, just then Vega entered the room.

"Mark has been spotted, you'll never guess where though."

"Where was he spotted?" Catherine asked.

"He was spotted entering the home of Cassandra Mulox." Vega replied.

"That means one of two things, he and Cassandra are in cahoots or he's going after Cassandra next." Catherine realized.

"Personally I don't like either option." Sophie said finishing her coffee in a few gulps and standing up. "Does Sara know yet?"

"I passed her on the way over, told her of the situation and she told me to tell you to meet her in the garage." Vega replied.

"And that's where we're heading." Catherine said finishing her coffee, she and Sophie left the room and went to the garage where Sara was waiting for them.

"Hey guys, ready to roll?" Sara said.

"You know it." Sophie said hopping in the back, Catherine and Sara hopped in the driver's and passenger side seats respectively and Catherine started the car and drove to the Mulox residence, when they got there Cassandra was seen arguing with Mark over something, Vega didn't waste any time and tackled Mark to the ground putting the cuffs on him.

"Mark Verona, I'm arresting you on suspicion of murder, you don't have to say anything, and anything you do say will be given as evidence in court." Vega informed him as Catherine, Sophie and Sara approached Cassandra.

"Are you hurt?" Catherine asked.

"Apart from the sore throat from arguing with him, no I'm fine." Cassandra replied.

"Do you know that man?" Sophie asked and the older woman shrugged.

"Hell if I know, he's probably just some thug Joey owed money to...."

"Like hell, you hired me to kill that bastard." Mark yelled as he was being dragged to the car, Vega stopped in his tracks.

"What was that?" Vega asked.

"You aint leaving me high and dry lady, your going down for this like Rex and Marcus did before me!" Mark ignored Vega and continued to yell at Cassandra.

"Vega, will that warrant count for this place?" Sophie asked.

"That depends, do you live here Mark?" Vega asked.

"As a matter of fact yes I do." Mark said before Vega put him in the car. Vega showed Cassandra the warrant.

"This Warrant allows us to search the home of Mark Verona, which is technically your house." Vega informed her.

"I'm calling my lawyer." Cassandra stated as she called her daughter down to join her outside. Once the mother and daughter left the house the three CSIS entered.

"Well, that was unexpected." Sophie commented once they where out of Cassandra's range of hearing.

"I don't know, she did say that she never cared for him." Sara remembered as they entered the lounge.

"I've known plenty of girls who hated their exes but they never went as far as to have him killed, mostly because they didn't have the money to hire thugs like Cassandra did but you get the idea." Sophie replied.

"Yeah but I doubt that they would've done if they had the chance." Catherine added as they started searching the house, whilst searching for evidence a document caught her attention.

"Actually I think Cassandra wasn't telling the truth about the relationship she and Joey had, have a look at this." Sophie said showing them the document.

"Divorce papers from there divorce settlement, this is interesting as she personally requested that Joey not only had full visitation rights but requested that Joey didn't pay her any alimony, women who do that usually get along well with their exes." Catherine commented as Sophie bagged the papers.

"And that conflicts with what she said earlier, not to mention the idea of her having Joey killed in the first place." Sara added.

"True, maybe something else in this house can answer that." Catherine said. "Sophie you search the upstairs floor, Sara, you search the garage and I'll search the ground floor."

"I'm on it." The two women said simultaneously and went about there tasks, Sophie started with what seemed an obvious source of evidence, the room Mark stayed in, however the only bedrooms that where upstairs where the master bedroom and Cassandra's daughter's room.

"_That's weird, you'd think a guy living here would at least sleep in the guest room, unless..." _Sophie thought entering the master bedroom, it was by far the most beautiful bedroom she had seen, a large double bed set in the centre of the room and the room was beautifully decorated.

"Man, I'm almost tempted to just fall asleep in here." Sophie thought out loud after letting out a low whistle; she shook her head and looked around when something caught her interest.

"Is that Cassandra and Mark in that photo?" She wondered looking at the photo, not only did they appear to get on well but they appeared to be lovers, which only confused Sophie further.

"_Okay, first she lies about her relationship with Joey and now it seems that she hired her current lover to kill her ex? Something isn't adding up here." _Sophie thought turning her attention away from the photo; she found seaman on the bed and swabbed it when something else caught her attention, a USB drive marked "My plans for Abigail" which was well hidden. _"Abigail? Is that her daughter's name?" _Sophie thought as she bagged it, seeing nothing else she left the room and entered the girl's room not expecting to find much, boy was she wrong.

"_A dented baseball bat and a bloody knife, doesn't take a genius to figure this one out."_ She thought bagging the weapons, seeing nothing else she checked the other rooms but found nothing of use and went downstairs.

"Any luck?" Catherine asked when she saw Sophie.

"Plenty of luck and just as much confusion, not only did Mark not have his own room here but he shared a room with Cassandra and...."

"Let me guess, they are lovers?" Catherine asked and she nodded before showing the weapons, the USB and the seaman. "Good work kid. I found something just as interesting on her laptop,."

"I'm listening." Sophie said.

"Two things really, both are encrypted files though but they should be useful." Catherine said as Sara emerged from the garage.

"Guys, this is getting weird, I found a secret room in the garage, a small one but it looks like an office of some sort." Sara told them.

"An office you say? What was in there?" Catherine asked.

"A Computer which I retrieved an encrypted file from marked "The Future" and several incriminating documents." Sara said.

"Incriminating? What do you mean?" Sophie asked.

"I mean incriminating as in details of her organised crime activities." Sara said showing them the documents.

"Damn, she had a hand in everything, extortion, racketeering, drug smuggling, bribing a police officer. Why do I get the feeling that we've been fooled by a criminal mastermind?" Sophie said.

"Because we have, we're done here let's head to the lab." Catherine said, she left the house with the two other women following her and motioned to Vega to take Cassandra into custody, he did so and despite some resistance she was taken away, they soon made there way to the lab and Sara took the documents to Questioned Documents, Sophie took the seaman to DNA and the three women stopped at the computer tech lab next.

"So, what do you want to view first?" Sophie asked.

"Let's start with the USB you found." She nodded and inserted it into the PC, after a few seconds a folder opened up containing a video file. Sophie double clicked on it but it was encrypted. After decrypting the video file she played the video which showed Cassandra speaking with several men one of which they where quickly able to identify as Mark.

"I don't care what Joseph says, Abigail is my daughter and I chose what paths she takes in her life, when she is old enough she will join the family even if I have to go through Joseph to do it, he maybe my husband but my need for an heir outweighs his sense of justice and besides, Abigail is already showing that she wants to join the organisation."

"What if she changes her mind?" Mark asked.

"She won't have a choice in the matter." Then the video cut out, Sophie briefly turned to Catherine who was angered by what she had heard.

"I've heard of parents wanting their children to follow in their footsteps but that's ridicules." Vega, who had been watching the video from outside the lab, commented.

"I think it's safe to say that this video is pretty old as well, for one thing Cassandra never referred to Joey as her ex which could mean this was filmed when they where married." Sara added as Sophie took out the USB. Catherine said nothing and put the USB containing the files she retrieved from the laptop, after decrypting them Sophie turned to Catherine.

"What do you want to read first?" Sophie asked, after a brief read of the file names she pointed to the Word Document marked "To Whom it May Concern" and Sophie clicked on it.

"My name is Joey Mulox, I am 45 years old and my daughter needs help." Sophie read of the screen. "She is not ill, she is not injured but she needs help because my wife is leading her down a road that will surely lead to her death, my wife is an organised crime boss, I should know as I moonlight as a cop when in reality I am her second in command. Is Cassandra is not stopped soon I dread to think what will become of my daughter when she turns 21, for that reason I am sending this e-mail to Undersheriff in hopes that he can insure that my daughter has a bright future, by locking up Cassandra and throwing away the key."

"I never pegged Mulox as the kind of man who'd risk his career for his daughter." Vega said once Sophie finished.

"And this whole mess is starting to make sense, Cassandra wanted Abigail to join the Mafia family that she was in charge off at the age of 21, something that Joey was firmly against to the point that he was going to expose her duel life, that's motive enough to have him killed." Sophie commented.

"She had the means to hire Marcus, Rex and Mark to carry out the deed." Sara added.

"And best of all, she had opportunity, but before we interview Cassandra and Mark let's process the weapons that Sophie retrieved from Abigail's room." Catherine said.

"Don't we have the file Sara retrieved and the other file you retrieved to check first?" Sophie asked.

"Oh right, Sara can you check those files?" Catherine asked.

"Sure can." Sara said as Sophie stood up to allow her to take Sophie's seat, Sophie followed Catherine to the layout room and got the weapons out.

"Okay, Sophie you get to work on the knife, swab the blood and check the handle for fingerprints, I'm on the baseball bat." Catherine told her, Sophie swabbed the blood and dusted the handle for prints finding one near the end of the handle she lifted it.

"I've got to get these to DNA and Fingerprints." Sophie told Catherine.

"Well since you're on your way there you can also drop off the print I lifted from the bat." Catherine said passing the lifted print to her younger colleague. She took them and left the room first stopping of at the Fingerprints lab.

"Hey Sophie, what have you got?" Greeted Mandy as she looked up, she was sitting at her desk.

"Two fingerprints for you, one of them is from the suspected murder weapon the other is from a bat used to smash Joey's ribs and jaw." Sophie said as she passed them.

"I'll get on them right away." Mandy said as Sophie left making her way over to DNA.

"Great timing Sophie, I was about to page you." Wendy said when she saw her.

"I'll take that as confirmation that we have the results on the seaman?" Sophie asked.

"Seaman belonged to Mark, and I'm not just talking about the bedroom seaman."

"You mean he was the third guy in the four way?" Sophie asked.

"You got it, so what are you here for?"

"Compare this to Joey's DNA sample." Sophie said showing the blood from the knife. Wendy did so and the two women grinned at the results.

"And we have a murder weapon!" Sophie said seeing the results came back as a positive match, after thanking Wendy she went off to find Catherine; it didn't take her long to find her as she was talking with Sara.

"Hey guys." She said.

"Hey, are the fingerprints and DNA at the labs yet?" Catherine asked.

"Even better, fingerprints are at the lab AND we have a murder weapon, the blood on the knife was Joey's." Sophie told them. "Find anything interesting on those files."

"I did, not only did I find bank records showing that Cassandra paid Mark, Rex and Marcus a cool million to kill Joey but apparently Cassandra was expanding her business in the illegal sense."

"What was she expanding into?" Sophie asked.

"Prostitution and here's the sick thing I found....."

"Don't tell me Abigail was going to be forced into prostitution?" Sophie asked.

"Yeah, that's right." Sara answered.

"And now the pieces fit together, Joey found out about it and was threatening to turn Cassandra in and Cassandra had him killed." Sophie realized. "Wait a minute, what kind of mother would force that kind of life onto her daughter?"

"Maybe that's because she wasn't her daughter, biologically speaking." Vega said walking up. "I did some background research and according to Cassandra's medical records she couldn't give birth due to a genetic condition so they adopted Abigail,"

"Okay that explains some things but not everything." Sophie said but was interrupted by a page. "Fingerprint results are in, Rex used the baseball bat and Mark finished the job."

"In the case it's about time we had a chat with them." Vega said as he went off to make the arrangements, five minutes later he came back. "Cassandra and Mark are in the interrogation room and are ready to be interviewed; they have their lawyers present just a fair warning."

"Now that you mention it, did we check to see if Mark was at the hotel with Rex and Marcus?" Sophie wondered.

"No we didn't, Sara can you get on that?" Catherine asked her.

"I'm on it." Sara said walking off and Sara and Catherine entered the interrogation room and sat across from Mark and Cassandra who had their lawyers with them.

"You weren't telling the truth when we talked the first time around, weren't you Cassandra?" Vega asked.

"No comment." Cassandra said simply.

"Is that all you have to say? That's good because the evidence we recovered from your home did all the talking for us." Catherine said.

"Obtained without a warrant, and that means my client goes free." Cassandra's attorney said as they started to leave.

"Not exactly, this is a warrant that allows us to search the home of Mark Verona, and he said it himself that he lives there." Sophie said showing them the warrant.

"Touché." The lawyer said after reading the warrant.

"Whilst we're on the subject Mark, we know that it was you that finished the job at the Tangiers." Catherine said turning to him.

"And how can you prove that?" The lawyer asked.

"Fingerprints and DNA, namely your fingerprints on the handle and Joey's DNA, more specifically blood, on the knife it's self." Catherine said.

"And we can also place you at the hotel during the two day period that you, Rex and Marcus used to plan the murder. All courtesy of a little fling you and the boys had with Samantha Drellows." Sophie said.

"YOU HAD SEX WITH ANOTHER WOMAN BEHIND MY BACK?!" Cassandra yelled at Mark.

"It was part of the plan honey, I mean really I know some of the guys there and that woman's slept with almost every other employee there, including the females!" Mark said in his defence.

"_Where's Dr. Phil when you need him?"_ Sophie thought before interrupting them. "Mark, that means you're getting life without parole, now if it weren't for your little revelation at the Mulox residence you would've gotten death instead so why don't you be a sport and tell us the plan?"

"Okay fine, Cassandra here gave me the orders, take two freelancers with me and kill Joey, she didn't care how or what went down as long as that bastard ended up at the funeral home, once we gained access to the room we got to work, I contacted Joey telling him that Cassandra wanted to meet with him at a fancy restaurant to discuss business when in reality we where setting him up, I sat at the table with Joey whilst Rex and Marcus waited out back, we waited until he needed a piss, and when he was taking a piss Rex used the old "chloroform cloth over the mouth" trick and knocked him out in seconds, I paid for the bill in cash whilst Marcus loaded him into the trunk of a rental car and we drove to the hotel, took him to the room and went to town on him, it was supposed to be slow, painful and with a minimum of blood shad."

"But that went wrong, didn't it Mark?" Sophie said. "When Marcus shot out Joey's limbs he fit four major arteries causing blood to pour out of his body."

"Damn that Marcus, he assured me that he was a damn good shot before he shot out the limps, at that point I had already gouged out Joey's eyes, don't try to find them as they have been incinerated, and I panicked, I figured the throat wound would finish the job quicker but it didn't and we got the hell out of there!"

"Whilst that is a compelling story you still need video evidence of my client at the hotel." The lawyer said.

"Well it's a good thing we have it then." Said Sara, who had entered the room during Mark's exposition. said passing a photo of him at the hotel, Mark's face paled.

"I have nothing else to say." Mark said as the officer led him away.

"And now back to you and the evidence we got from the house. It seems you had plans for Abigail." Catherine started.

"She's my daughter; of course I have plans for her when she grows up."

"Like prostitution?" Sophie said nonchalantly.

"That's slander; I'll sue you and this....."

"Actually it's not, you may of encrypted that "Future" file but it didn't stop us from viewing it, and your intentions for your adopted daughter." Sophie said with a hint of disgust in her voice.

Cassandra fell silent.

"We where suspicious when we found out that you had lied about how happy you where with your relationship with Joey but as we gathered more evidence it became clear, Joey wanted a better life for his daughter and was willing to testify against you in order for that to happen, you must've thought that a divorce settlement like that would satisfy him but it didn't so you paid Mark, Rex and Marcus to kill him but you didn't count on Mark being a loud mouth." Catherine said.

"The road that Abigail was going to go down was a road of profit, of money, how could Joey be so selfish as to...."

She stopped when Sophie laughed.

"Selfish? You're calling the man who didn't want his daughter forced into prostitution selfish? Oh that's rich, just plain rich, you know what's worse? Whoever ran that foster home you got Abigail from entrusted her to you but by setting these plans in place you betrayed that trust, and now thanks to daddy being dead and mommy getting a life sentence she's going right back to the foster home." Sophie ranted. Catherine could tell that this was a touchy subject for her and decided to step in.

"For all his faults Joey loved his daughter, so much so that he was willing to put you behind bars to protect her, and now you are going behind bars, I've got three words for you Cassandra, life without parole." The officer put the woman in cuffs and dragged her away.

"Are you okay?" Catherine asked Sophie once Cassandra left.

"I'm fine; just need a long shower to cool off." Sophie said standing up.

"Well if you're up for it, want to join us for a drink? It is the end of our shift."

"Sure, I'll meet you guys down there." Sophie said walking out.

Epilogue:

_Ice Cold was sentenced to Death by lethal injection for his crimes, all it took was a tearful testimony from Emily to secure his spot on death row._

_Scott Michaels was given forced retirement in return for his testimony._

_Rex Cannon, Mark Verona and Cassandra Mulox are each serving a life sentence without parole._

Author's Note: Did you enjoy it? Do you want to see more? You've got more as this is the first of a series of CSI fanfics that I will be writing.


End file.
